Background and objectivesA disruption in the co-ordination of bottom-up and top-down processing is thought to underlie anomalous perceptual experiences in psychosis. Visual illusions represent a valuable methodology in exploring this disruption. Here, we examined visual illusions in a group of young people having psychotic-like experiences. We also examined the relationship between illusion susceptibility and appraisal of psychotic-like experiences as well as depression, anxiety and stress levels. Method25 young people reporting psychotic-like experiences and 53 healthy participants performed an adjustment task that measured susceptibility to a battery of 13 visual illusions. Levels of depression, anxiety and stress were quantified in both groups. The clinical group also completed measures examining frequency, appraisals and emotional responses to psychotic-like experiences. ResultsA general increase of illusion susceptibility was found in the clinical group compared to the control group. However, when depression, anxiety and stress levels were controlled for, this difference disappeared. Stress turned out to be the best predictor of illusion susceptibility in the clinical group, whereas anomalous experiences, depression and anxiety were unrelated to overall illusion strength. LimitationsThis study is limited to young participants reporting significant mental health difficulties and psychotic-like experiences. Findings should be replicated in an Ultra High Risk (prodromal) group. ConclusionsIncreased levels of stress explained the enhanced vulnerability to illusions in the clinical group. This increased susceptibility suggests a perceptual style that relies too heavily on prior expectations at the expense of the true sensory evidence, potentially leading to an altered perceptual experience of the world.

This study aimed to explore the impact of carer stressors (neuropsychiatric symptoms of dementia, level of independence in activities of daily living, hours of caring per week), demographic factors (carer age, relationship with the person with dementia, dementia type, dementia severity, number of years since diagnosis and cohabitation status) and psychological inflexibility on depression and anxiety in family carers of people with dementia. Eighty-nine family carers with a mean age of 69.13 years old completed self-reported and interview-based questionnaires. Participants were primarily female family members aged 65 years or older looking after a person with severe Alzheimer's disease. Two final regression models (Depression model R2 = 0.43; Anxiety model R2 = 0.43) demonstrated that psychological inflexibility (β = 0.52) and the number of hours devoted to caregiving (β = 0.23) had a significant impact on carer depression, while psychological inflexibility was the only significant independent predictor of carer anxiety (β = 0.55). The findings demonstrated psychological inflexibility to be a common factor explaining mental health problems in this population even after controlling for other variables known to have an impact. Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) may be beneficial for concomitantly treating depression and anxiety in this population. Considering that fifty-two per cent of participants responded that they devote more than 41 h to caregiving per week, a non-traditional face to face approach such as online ACT may have potential in future research. Future studies should also explore the suggested models in understudied subgroups of carers (e.g., carers of early-onset dementia, carers of people with early-stage dementia).

AbstractIn this work, a modified plate model situated in‐between the classical Kirchhoff‐Love and first‐order shear deformation plate theory (FSDT) is proposed. The modified plate model includes transverse shear deformation and the governing system of partial differential equations can be tackled employing a complex potential approach. This allows for using the powerful tool of conformal mapping enabling closed‐form analytical solutions on complex domains. Based on the established complex potential methodology, the distribution of bending moments at an elliptical hole in an infinite plate under bending loading is derived. Solutions of the modified plate model are compared against numerical reference data employing FSDT.

People with dementia are at risk of exiting premises unsupervised, eloping, or getting lost, potentially leading to harmful or distressing consequences. This review aimed to estimate the effectiveness of interventions for preventing people with dementia from exiting or getting lost. A systematic review of English sources was undertaken. Health care (EMBASE, BNI, Medline, PubMed, CINAHL, PsycINFO, AMED, HTA, CENTRAL) and gray literature (OpenGrey) databases were searched using prespecified search terms. Additional studies were identified by hand-searching bibliographies of relevant reviews and included studies. Wide inclusion criteria were set to capture a range of intervention types. Data extraction and risk of bias assessment were completed independently by two reviewers. Methods were preregistered on PROSPERO. Individual and overall risk of bias was too high for statistical meta-analyses. A narrative synthesis was therefore performed. Twenty-five studies with 814 participants were included, investigating a range of nonpharmacological interventions aiming to prevent exiting, facilitate retrieval, educate participants, or a combination of these. Seventeen (68%) of the included studies had critical risks of internal bias to outcomes, providing no useful evidence for the effectiveness of their respective interventions. The remaining 8 (32%) studies had serious risks of bias. Narrative synthesis of results yielded no overall robust evidence for the effectiveness of any interventions. No evidence was found to justify the recommendation of any interventions included in this review. Future studies should focus on high-quality, controlled study designs.

AbstractIn the present study, a semi‐analytical asymptotic approach is used in order to analyse the change of total potential energy due to the initiation of a crack at a sharp re‐entrant corner. The semi‐analytical solution nature allows for reducing the numerical effort compared to a purely numerical treatment and provides a deeper physical insight into the fracture mechanics problem. Finally, the obtained asymptotic solutions are compared to numerical reference solutions. (© 2017 Wiley‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)

In individuals with low back pain, higher lipid levels have been documented and were associated with increased risk for chronic low back pain. The purpose of this research was to identify plasma lipids that discriminate participants with acute low back pain with or without pain sensitization as measured by quantitative sensory testing. This exploratory study was conducted as part of a larger parent randomized controlled trial. A cluster analysis of 30 participants with acute low back pain revealed two clusters: one with signs of peripheral and central sensitivity to mechanical and thermal stimuli and the other with an absence of peripheral and central sensitivity. Lipid levels were extracted from plasma and measured using mass spectroscopy. Triacylglycerol 50:2 was significantly higher in participants with peripheral and central sensitization compared to the nonsensitized cluster. The nonsensitized cluster had significantly higher levels of phosphoglyceride 34:2, plasmenyl phosphocholine 38:1, and phosphatidic acid 28:1 compared to participants with peripheral and central sensitization. Linear discriminant function analysis was conducted using the four statistically significant lipids to test their predictive power to classify those in the sensitization and no-sensitization clusters; the four lipids accurately predicted cluster classification 58% of the time (R = .58, -2 log likelihood = 14.59). The results of this exploratory study suggest a unique lipidomic signature in plasma of patients with acute low back pain based on the presence or absence of pain sensitization. Future work to replicate these preliminary findings is underway.

Previous diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) studies have shown that various factors can affect white matter (WM) tract diffusivity. The aim of the present study was to investigate the effects of childhood adversity (CA), age and gender on WM diffusivity in tracts that are thought to be involved in emotional regulation in individuals with major depressive disorder (MDD) and healthy controls (HC). DTI was obtained from 46 subjects with MDD and 46 HC subjects. Data were pre-processed and deterministic tractography was applied in the cingulum, uncinate fasciculus (UF), fornix, superior longitudinal fasciculus (SLF) and fronto-occipital fasciculus (FOF). In subjects with a history of CA, fractional anisotropy (FA) was greater in the rostral cingulum (RC) and dorsal cingulum, whereas radial diffusivity (RD) was smaller in the RC when compared with subjects with no history of CA. In the UF, FOF and parahippocampal cingulum, FA was greater in the left hemisphere in the subjects with CA when compared with those without CA. Age affected FA, longitudinal diffusivity and RD in the UF, fornix, FOF and SLF, reflecting axonal and myelin degeneration with increasing age. Depression or gender did not have any effects on the diffusivity measures. Due to the cross-sectional nature of the study, a recall bias for CA and possible effects of medical treatment on diffusivity measures could have played a role. CA and age could increase the likelihood to develop WM microstructural anomalies in the brain affective network. Moreover, subjects with CA could be more vulnerable to FA changes.