No abstract

Highlights Alterations in attentional processing have been observed in various binge behaviors. We synthesize results from event-related potentials to incentive stimuli. P300 and LPP amplitudes are consistently enlarged across studies. The findings are in line with incentive sensitization.

Objective: There is only some literature regarding the influence of verbal suggestions on cognitive performance in healthy volunteers. For example, the performance in a knowledge test was enhanced when participants were told that they had subliminally received the correct answer. However, enhancing cognitive performance only via verbal suggestions without prior conditioning phases has not yet been examined. The goal of our study was therefore to investigate the effects of a mental training based on verbal suggestions compared to a control training on cognitive performance in a student population using a balanced-placebo-design.Methods: In total, 103 participants were randomly assigned either to listening to a 20 min audio-taped mental training or to a 20 min philosophy lecture (control training) via headphones. Participants were individually tested before and after the training concerning their cognitive performance. Information about the type of training were varied in both intervention conditions (“You are part of our experimental condition and you will receive an effective mental training” or “You are part of our control group and you will receive the control condition”). At the end of the assessment, participants were asked what kind of training they believed they had received and how effective they would rate the received training.Results: Overall, the cognitive performance improved in all participants, F (1, 99) = 490.01, p < 0.001. Contrary to our hypotheses, we found no interaction of the type of training and type of instruction on the cognitive performance. Participants who rated the received training as being effective at the end of the experiment (regardless if it was the mental or the control training), have before experienced a greater improvement in their cognitive performance [F (2,100) = 7.26, p = 0.001] and showed higher scores in the ability to absorb [F(2, 99) = 3.75, p = 0.027].Conclusion: The subjects' own experiences in the task might have influenced the rating of the training rather than the actual training or the information they receive regarding the type of training. This finding underlines the relevance of enhancing the subjective beliefs and self-efficacy in situations where cognitive attention processes are important and of individually tailoring mental trainings.

Objectives Previous studies reported about the influence of early changes on treatment response. However, the question of whether early changes can predict the subsequent course of depressive symptoms during treatment with psychotherapy has not yet been clearly answered. We aimed to investigate whether symptom course in the first weeks at the level of individual session can predict the further symptom progression on a session to session level during psychotherapy treatment in patients with Major Depression (MD). Design Monocentric randomized controlled trial with psychotherapeutic treatment either with cognitive‐behavioural therapy (CBT) or hypnotherapy (HT). The longitudinal course of weekly depressive symptoms during the six months treatment period was examined. Methods In this RCT with 152 randomized patients suffering from current mild‐to‐moderate MD, depressive symptoms were assessed on a weekly basis during the 20 sessions’ treatment with individual psychotherapy. We only included patients for which sufficient data for our analysis were available. Three different linear and quadratic mixed model analyses with random effects for each patient were tested: Early change was defined as the individual percentage symptom change during the first two, three, four and five weeks. Symptoms from session four, five, six and seven onward were predicted using different models, with early change added to the model in a final step. Calculating all models separately for CBT and HT lead to comparable results. Result A slow symptom decrease after session four, five, six, seven onward to the end of the treatment was found. However, adding early change to the model, had no effect on the further symptom course in all models. Conclusion Symptom changes at early stages of psychotherapy should not be considered as being predictive for further symptom course. Practitioner points The individual early symptom change in a treatment with psychotherapy in the first two, three, four, or five weeks of treatment does not predict the subsequent symptom course from session four, five, six, or seven onward at a session to session level. Symptom changes at early stages of psychotherapy should not be considered as being predictive for further symptom course. We found a symptom reduction ranging from 3% to 16% in the first two, three, four, or five weeks. Treatment response between the first and last therapy session was found in 54.5%, the number of remitted patients (with PHQ‐9 scores < 5) was 44.7%. A small symptom improvement of between 0.21 and 0.42 points in the PHQ‐9 scores per week in later stages of psychotherapy is likely in all patients (with and without early symptom improvement).

Background. Hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT) is a curative treatment option for malignant and nonmalignant diseases that is highly distressing, especially for children. A valid assessment of pediatric patients’ distress that is independent from their language skills would be beneficial. Research regarding HSCT-specific self-reporting or rater-reporting instruments is scarce. Method. In this single-center prospective study, pediatric patients and young adolescents undergoing HSCT were screened for mental and somatic distress using PO-Bado (Basic Documentation for Psycho-Oncology) ratings from parents and medical caregivers on eight observations days before, during, and up to 200 days after HSCT. Additionally, the stress biomarkers cortisol and α-amylase were monitored on the same observation days. Results. A total of 39 pediatric and young adult patients with a median age of 9.3 years (range 0.5–19.0), with 18 females (46%) and 21 males, were enrolled. The perceptions of the patients’ somatic and mental distress of parents and medical caregivers of patients were significantly correlated (mental subscale ((r(276) = 0.31, p < 0.001 ., 95% CI of the correlation: (0.20, 0.41)) and somatic subscale ((r(284) = 0.46, p < 0.001 ., 95% CI of the correlation: 0.36, 0.54)). The time period between the days of transplantation until day +10 was rated as the most mentally and somatically distressing. Conclusions. While the somatic burden declined over time, the mental distress in the patients remained at a stable level, emphasizing the importance of further psychological and psycho-oncological support in these patients. The use of salivary α-amylase as a suitable distress detection marker in pediatric patients undergoing HSCT should be further investigated.