Meditation buffers medical student compassion from the deleterious effects of depression

Increasing data suggest that for medical school students the stress of academic and psychological demands can impair social emotions that are a core aspect of compassion and ultimately physician competence. Few interventions have proven successful for enhancing physician compassion in ways that persist in the face of suffering and that enable sustained caretaker well-being. To address this issue, the current study was designed to (1) investigate the feasibility of cognitively-based compassion training (CBCT) for second-year medical students, and (2) test whether CBCT decreases depression, enhances compassion, and improves daily functioning in medical students. Compared to the wait-list group, students randomized to CBCT reported increased compassion, and decreased loneliness and depression. Changes in compassion were most robust in individuals reporting high levels of depression at baseline, suggesting that CBCT may benefit those most in need by breaking the link between personal suffering and a concomitant drop in compassion.     

Semantic priming effects in a lexical decision task: comparing third graders and college students in two different stimulus onset asynchronies

Differences in the semantic priming effect comparing child and adult performance have been found by some studies. However, these differences are not well established, mostly because of the variety of methods used by researchers around the world. One of the main issues concerns the absence of semantic priming effects on children at stimulus onset asynchrony (SOA) smaller than 300ms. The aim of this study was to compare the semantic priming effect between third graders and college students at two different SOAs: 250ms and 500ms. Participants performed lexical decisions to targets which were preceded by semantic related or unrelated primes. Semantic priming effects were found at both SOAs in the third graders' group and in college students. Despite the fact that there was no difference between groups in the magnitude of semantic priming effects when SOA was 250ms, at the 500ms SOA their magnitude was bigger in children, corroborating previous studies. Hypotheses which could explain the presence of semantic priming effects in children's performance when SOA was 250ms are discussed, as well as hypotheses for the larger magnitude of semantic priming effects in children when SOA was 500ms.     

Sleep after learning aids memory recall

In recent years, the effect of sleep on memory consolidation has received considerable attention. In humans, these studies concentrated mainly on procedural types of memory, which are considered to be hippocampus-independent. Here, we show that sleep also has a persisting effect on hippocampus-dependent declarative memory. In two experiments, we examined high school students' ability to remember vocabulary. We show that declarative memory is enhanced when sleep follows within a few hours of learning, independent of time of day, and with equal amounts of interference during retention intervals. Sleep deprivation has a detrimental effect on memory, which was significant after a night of recovery sleep. Thus, fatigue accumulating during wake intervals could be ruled out as a confound.     

Examination of emotional Stroop interference in obsessive-compulsive disorder

Previous research has produced conflicting findings on whether or not patients with subclinical or manifest obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) share an attentional bias for anxiety-related material. In the present study, 35 OCD patients were compared with 20 healthy controls on their performance in an emotional Stroop paradigm. Nine different stimulus conditions were compiled, including sets for depression-related and anxiety-related words as well as stimuli from two constructs with a potential relevance for the pathogenesis and maintenance of OCD symptomatology: responsibility and conscientiousness. Patients did not show enhanced interference for any of the conditions. Syndrome subtype and severity, avoidance and speed of information processing did not moderate results. The present study concurs with most prior research that OCD patients display no interference effect for general threat words. It deserves further consideration, that emotional interference effects in OCD as seen in other anxiety disorders occur when using idiosyncratic word material with a direct relation to the individual's primary concerns.     

Neurocognitive impairment does not predict treatment outcome in obsessive-compulsive disorder

There is conflicting evidence pertaining to whether or not neurocognitive task performance at baseline predicts treatment response in obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). In the present study, we administered a set of executive neurocognitive tests with a putative sensitivity for treatment outcome to a sample of 138 OCD patients. Additionally, subjective neurocognitive dysfunction was determined via a questionnaire. All patients participated in a cognitive-behavioural treatment program (CBT). Results showed that responders (n = 73) did not differ from non-responders (n = 65) on any of the parameters except for decreased performance on the delayed alternation test (p < .1, effect size: .61). A subsidiary analysis revealed that slowing on the Trail-Making Test A and an enhanced rate of perserveration errors on the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test predicted poor outcome for the treatment of compulsions. It is concluded that neurocognitive impairment does not represent a reliable early warning sign for non-response to CBT.     

Psychosozialer Versorgungsbedarf bei Arbeitnehmern

Zusammenfassung  Untersuchungen zu Häufigkeit, Verlauf und Ursachen psychischer Erkrankungen bei Arbeitnehmern sind rar. Die Gründe hierfür liegen sowohl auf Seiten der Arbeitsmedizin, die psychosoziale Aspekte wenig berücksichtigt, als auch bei der Psychotherapie, die zu wenig auf die Arbeitssituation eingeht. Die wenigen aussagekräftigen Untersuchungen legen bei Arbeitnehmern eine ähnlich hohe Prävalenz und Behandlungsbedürftigkeit nahe wie in der Allgemeinbevölkerung. Von den Folgen einer störungsinadäquaten Therapie psychischer Erkrankungen sind Arbeitnehmer in besonderem Maße betroffen, da die Erkrankungen nicht nur zu erheblichem persönlichem Leid führen, sondern durch Chronifizierung zu enormen Kosten in der medizinischen Versorgung beitragen. Außerdem sind sie durch krankheitsbedingte Fehlzeiten und (Früh-)Berentungen auch die Ursache weit reichender Produktionsausfälle in der Wirtschaft. Obwohl eine Reihe von Maßnahmen der betrieblichen Gesundheitsförderung zur Besserung der psychischen Befindlichkeit von Arbeitnehmern verfügbar sind, werden sie gegenwärtig noch zu selten eingesetzt und noch weniger evaluiert.