Clinical efficacy of EMDR in unipolar depression: Changes in theta cordance.

Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) has demonstrated efficacy in treating major depressive disorder. EMDR increases cerebral perfusion in the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (dlPFC). Activity in the ACC and dlPFC can be measured by theta cordance (TC) but has not been examined in EMDR. Ten participants (3 men, 7 women, M age = 42.31 ± 15.03) received ten 75 ± 15 minute EMDR sessions over 6.5 ± .5 weeks. Results indicated that PHQ-9 depression scores reduced from T1 (M = 13.9 ± 3.31) to T11 (M = 6.30 ± 3.23) with EMDR (SMD = 2.30), and that fTC but not pfTC was significantly related to this change. Depression declined as fTC declined. EMDR may engage the dlPFC or ACC that modulates depression and aid in reducing fTC and thus depression levels.

Moderating Factors Associated With Interrupting the Transmission of Domestic Violence Among Adolescents.

Exposure to child maltreatment in the family-of-origin has consistently been linked to intimate partner violence (IPV) perpetration in adulthood. Although the concept of a cycle of violence presumes that the transmission of violence is expressed directly across generations, some protective factors such as social support, self-esteem, and relationship quality with parents may ultimately be influential in nonviolent behavior in adult relationships. Using the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health data set, we tested protective factors to see if and to what extent they disrupted the association from early childhood maltreatment to experiencing violence later on in adult relationships. We found that there was a positive association between adolescence exposure to maltreatment and adult perpetration and victimization of IPV. Also, social support in adolescence was identified as a predictor of lower levels of violence in adult relationship. Clinical implications were discussed to help therapists intervene with adolescents in the hopes of reducing their propensity toward violent relationships in adulthood.

Identification of biological processes and genes for gestational diabetes mellitus.

AIM: Gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM) is one of the most usual complications of pregnancy, while the correlations between genes and their known biological processes need to be further elucidated. METHODS: In the current study, microarray data GSE2956 containing a list of 435 significantly modified genes (differentially expressed genes, DEGs) were used. Genes that correspond to official gene symbols were chosen and were functional annotated for Gene Ontology (GO) and pathway analyses (p ≤ 0.05). Then, the protein-protein interaction (PPI) network and the sub network were constructed and analyzed (combined score ≥0.4). RESULTS: A total of 405 DEGs including 239 up-regulated and 166 down-regulated genes were screened, and they were found mainly related to adhesion and motion, stimulus-response, and wound healing, etc. Besides, a PPI network containing 217 nodes and 644 lines was obtained. Hub genes including fibronectin 1 (FN1) and insulin-like growth factor 1 (IGF1) were down-regulated, and leptin (LEP) and calmodulin 1 (CALM1) were up-regulated. Three modules in the PPI network were mined and similar functional terms enriched by DEGs of these modules were obtained. CONCLUSION: GO terms relevant to translation and metabolic process and their related genes CREB1, ribosomal proteins and LEP, still the inflammation-related proteins (e.g., IGF1 and CALM1) and cell adhesion-related protein FN1 may work together and be essential for GDM. This study provides insight into the cooperative interactions of metabolism and immune responses and the pathogenesis of GDM.