Objective: About 10 years ago, Gratz and Roemer (2004) introduced the Difficulties in EmotionRegulation Scale (DERS), a 36-item self-report instrument measuring 6 areas of emotion regulation problems. Recently, Bjureberg et al. (2015) have introduced a new, briefer version of the DERS comprising only 16 of the 36 items included in the original version. Because no studies have yet crossvalidated the recently introduced 16-item DERS and the 36-item DERS has never been tested in Brazil, we sought to inspect the psychometric properties of scores from both DERS versions with a nonclinical Brazilian sample. Method: Participants were 725 adult volunteers aged 18-70 years (mean = 30.54, standard deviation = 10.59), 82.3% of whom were women. All were administered the DERS along with a number of other self-report and performance-based instruments. Data analyses inspected internal consistency, factor structure, and convergent as well as divergent validity of scores from both DERS versions. Results: Results show that scores from both DERS versions possess good psychometric properties. Interestingly, both versions correlated, in the expected direction, with psychopathology and showed no significant correlations with cognitive measures. Like in other studies, however, the Awareness factor of the 36-item DERS did not produce optimal validity and reliability indexes. Conclusion: Taken together, our findings indicate that the 16-item DERS may be preferred over the 36-item version and provide additional support to the differentiation between emotion regulation and cognitive tasks of emotional perception and abstract and verbal reasoning. C

We would like to thank Angiola Accardi and Jess Bosi for the linguistic review.

Objective: Multiple Sclerosis (MS) is a demyelinating autoimmune disease that imposes a significant emotional burden with heavy psychosocial consequences. Several studies have investigated the association between MS and mental disorders such as depression and anxiety, and recently researchers have focused also on Post-traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). This is the first study that investigates the usefulness of proposing a treatment for PTSD to patients with MS.Methods: A randomized controlled trial with patients with MS diagnosed with PTSD comparing Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR; n = 20) and Relaxation Therapy (RT; n = 22). The primary outcome measure was the proportion of participants that no longer meet PTSD diagnosis as measured with Clinician Administered PTSD Scale 6-months after the treatment.Results: The majority of patients were able to overcome their PTSD diagnosis after only 10 therapy sessions. EMDR treatment appears to be more effective than RT in reducing the proportion of patients with MS suffering from PTSD. Both treatments are effective in reducing PTSD severity, anxiety and depression symptoms, and to improve Quality of Life.Conclusion: Although our results can only be considered preliminary, this study suggests that it is essential that PTSD symptoms are detected and that brief and cost-effective interventions to reduce PTSD and associated psychological symptoms are offered to patients, in order to help them to reduce the psychological burden associated with their neurological condition.Trial registration: NCT01743664, https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT01743664

The Inventory of Problems -29 (IOP-29) was recently introduced as a brief, easy-to-use measure of non-credible mental and cognitive symptoms that may be applied to a wide variety of contexts or clinical conditions. The current study compared its validity in discriminating bonafide versus feigned (via experimental malingering paradigm) psychopathology against that of the Structured Inventory of Malingered Symptomatology (SIMS). Specifically, 452 Italian adult volunteers participated in this study: 216 were individuals with mental illness who were asked to take the SIMS and IOP-29 honestly, and 236 were nonclinical participants (experimental simulators) who took the same two tests with the instruction to feign a psychopathological condition. Two main, broad categories of symptom presentations were investigated: (a) psychotic spectrum disorders and (b) anxiety, depression, and/or trauma-related disorders. Data analysis compared the effect sizes of the differences between the patients and experimental simulators, as well as the AUC and classification accuracy statistics for both the SIMS and IOP-29. The results indicate that the IOP-29 outperformed the SIMS, with the differences between the two tools being more notable within the psychotic (IOP-29 vs. SIMS: d = -1.80 vs. d = -1.06; AUC = .89 vs. AUC = .79) than within the anxiety, depression, and/or trauma related subgroup (IOP-29 vs. SIMS: d = -2.02 vs. d = -1.62; AUC = .90 vs. AUC = .86). This study also demonstrates that the IOP-29, with its single cutoff score, is generalizable culturally and linguistically from the U.S. (English) to Italy (Italian).

Voxel-based morphometry (VBM) and diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) are the most implemented methodologies to detect alterations of both gray and white matter (WM). However, the role of WM in mental disorders is still not well defined. We aimed at clarifying the role of WM disruption in schizophrenia and at identifying the most frequently involved brain networks. A systematic literature search was conducted to identify VBM and DTI studies focusing on WM alterations in patients with schizophrenia compared to control subjects. We selected studies reporting the coordinates of WM reductions and we performed the anatomical likelihood estimation (ALE). Moreover, we labeled the WM bundles with an anatomical atlas and compared VBM and DTI ALE-scores of each significant WM tract. A total of 59 studies were eligible for the meta-analysis. WM alterations were reported in 31 and 34 foci with VBM and DTI methods, respectively. The most occurred WM bundles in both VBM and DTI studies and largely involved in schizophrenia were long projection fibers, callosal and commissural fibers, part of motor descending fibers, and fronto-temporal-limbic pathways. The meta-analysis showed a widespread WM disruption in schizophrenia involving specific cerebral circuits instead of well-defined regions.