Highlights The COVID-19 pandemic is a major global progressive disaster. The effects on mental health and emotional support among the population are unclear. For this purpose, a prospective population-based study was conducted. High anxiety and depression symptoms levels and lack of support did not increase. Risk factors for symptoms and support before and during pandemic partly changed.

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BackgroundStudies have shown a clear relationship between depressive disorders and vitamin B12 deficiency. Gastroenteritis and Helicobacter pylori infections can cause vitamin B12 deficiency. Helicobacter pylori infections are not uncommon among people of Turkish descent in The Netherlands.AimTo examine the frequency of vitamin B12 deficiency in depressive patients of Turkish descent and compare it to the frequency of vitamin B12 deficiency in depressive patients of Dutch descent.MethodsThe present study is a comparative cross-sectional study of 47 patients of Turkish descent and 28 of Dutch descent. The depressive disorder diagnosis and differential diagnosis were made using the Structured Clinical Interview for the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, fourth edition text revision (SCID). The severity of the depressive symptoms was determined using the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI) and the 21-item Hamilton Depression Rating Scale (HAM-D-21). Serum baseline vitamin B6 and B12, folic acid and total serum homocysteine (tHcy) levels were measured.ResultsThe average ages of the patients of Turkish and Dutch descent were 40.57 and 44.75 years, respectively. There were no demonstrable differences between the serum vitamin B6, folic acid and tHcy levels in the two groups. The serum vitamin B12 levels were however clearly lower in the patients of Turkish descent than in those of Dutch descent. Vitamin B12 deficiency was however observed in 14 patients of Turkish descent and 1 of Dutch descent. This difference was significant. On the BDI, the patients of Turkish descent scored significantly higher than those of Dutch descent. Patients with vitamin B12 deficiency and those with hyperhomocysteinaemia had a significantly higher BDI score than patients with normal vitamin B12 and homocysteine levels. No relationship was observed with vitamin B12 and tHcy.ConclusionVitamin B12 deficiency occurs more frequently in depressive patients of Turkish than of Dutch descent. This is why it is advisable to test the vitamin B12 serum level in depressive patients of Turkish descent.

BackgroundThe formation of crossovers during meiosis is pivotal for the redistribution of traits among the progeny of sexually reproducing organisms. In plants the molecular mechanisms underlying the formation of crossovers have been well established, but relatively little is known about the factors that determine the exact location and the frequency of crossover events in the genome. In the model plant species Arabidopsis, research on these factors has been greatly facilitated by reporter lines containing linked fluorescence marker genes under control of promoters active in seeds or pollen, allowing for the visualization of crossover events by fluorescence microscopy. However, the usefulness of these reporter lines to screen for novel modulators of crossover frequency in a high throughput manner relies on the availability of programs that can accurately count fluorescent seeds. Such a program was previously not available in scientific literature.ResultsHere we present MeioSeed, a novel CellProfiler-based program that accurately counts GFP and RFP fluorescent Arabidopsis seeds with adjustable detection thresholds for fluorescence intensity, making use of a robust seed classifier which was trained by machine learning in Ilastik. Using the previously published reporter line Col3-4/20 as an example, we explain the use of MeioSeed and the steps taken to optimize the thresholding settings of the program to fit the published model for recombination frequency and transgene segregation. The use of MeioSeed is illustrated by investigating salt stress as a novel abiotic trigger for changes in crossover frequency in Col3-4/20 (♂) × Ler-0 (♀) F1 hybrids. Salt stress was found to trigger increases in crossover frequency between the marker genes of up to 70% compared to the control treatment without salt stress. Genotyping of control and salt treated populations revealed that the changes in crossover frequency were not limited to the region between the marker genes, but that fluctuations in crossover frequency are likely to occur genome-wide after treatment with high salt concentrations.ConclusionsMeioSeed allows for the high throughput recognition and counting of fluorescent Arabidopsis seeds and can facilitate the screening for novel abiotic and biotic modulators of crossover frequency using reporter lines in Arabidopsis.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (10.1186/s13007-018-0298-3) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

the disorder, and hope for improvement. Furthermore, SET obtained a highly significant reduction of the dropout rate and a significantly increased use of therapy. Similar results for both comparison groups were found regarding behavioural coping and self-effectiveness. Results indicate that SET both entails a high acceptance of treatment and offers an adequate and effective group therapy for patients with personality disorders. From a clinical and economic point of view, SET promises to significantly contribute to mental health care.