No abstract

Background The COVID-19 pandemic has led to increased stress, anxiety, and depression in children. A six-session, parent-led, transdiagnostic, cognitive-behavioral teletherapy program was adapted from an established protocol to help youth aged between 5 and 13 years manage emotional problems during the pandemic. Methods One-hundred twenty-nine parents of youth struggling with emotional problems during the COVID-19 pandemic participated in the program. Parents reported on their children's psychosocial functioning before and after treatment using validated assessments. They also reported on treatment satisfaction. Clinician-rated global improvement was assessed at each session to determine clinically significant treatment response. Results Significant improvements in parent proxy-reported anxiety ( d = .56), depression ( d = .69), stress ( d = .61), anger ( d = .69), family relationships ( d = .32), and COVID-19-related distress ( d = 1.08) were found, with 62% of participants who completed the program being classified as treatment responders. Parents reported high levels of satisfaction with the program. Limitations This study was limited by use of primarily parent-report assessments and a lack of a control group. Conclusions Brief, parent-led, transdiagnostic cognitive-behavioral teletherapy appeared to be an effective way to help youth cope with the pandemic and may be a scalable framework in response to large-scale mental health crises.

We investigated the regulation of putative high density lipoprotein (HDL) receptors in rat liver after cholesterol feeding and the administration of cholesterol-lowering drugs to rats. The expression of two plasma membrane HDL binding proteins (HB, and HB 2 ) were compared in control and treated livers by first separating membrane proteins on sodium dodecyl sulfate-polyacrylamide gels and quantitating HB, and HB 2 levels with a specific ligand blot assay. Of the various treatments used, only simvastatin or simvastatin plus cholestyramine produced significant changes, with reductions of up to 40% and 60%, respectively, for HB 1 and HB 2 . The effect on the binding proteins was not associated with changes in serum cholesterol concentrations, which did not change significantly after either treatment, although a marked rise in liver cholesterol concentration after cholesterol was associated with a moderate increase in HB 2 expression. We show evidence for regulation of the levels of hepatic HDL binding proteins and provide another important criterion for the acceptance of HB, and HB 2 as components of a functional HDL receptor. Index Terms: high density lipoprotein binding • liver • hypolipidemic drugs • cholesterol • rats at University of York (yku) / England on July 7, 2015 http://atvb.ahajournals.org/ Downloaded from D Mathai, N Fidge, M Tozuka and A Mitchell simvastatin and cholestyramine to rats.

The cannabinoid-1 receptor (CB1R) agonist Δ9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), the main psychoactive constituent of cannabis, adversely effects working memory performance in humans. The α2A-adrenoceptor (AR) agonist guanfacine improves working memory performance in humans. The authors aimed to determine the effects of short-term (6 days) treatment with guanfacine on adverse cognitive effects produced by THC. Employing a double-blind, placebo-controlled crossover design, the cognitive, subjective, and cardiovascular effects produced by oral THC (20 mg) administration were determined twice in the same cannabis users: once after treatment with placebo and once after treatment with guanfacine (3 mg/day). Compared with performance at baseline, THC negatively affected accuracy on spatial working memory trials while participants were maintained on placebo (p=0.012) but not guanfacine (p=0.497); compared with placebo, accuracy was significantly (p=0.003, Cohen's d=-0.640) improved while individuals were treated with guanfacine. Similarly, compared with baseline, THC increased omission errors on an attentional task while participants were maintained on placebo (p=0.017) but not on guanfacine (p=0.709); compared with placebo, there were significantly (p=0.034, Cohen's d=0.838) fewer omissions while individuals were maintained on guanfacine. Although THC increased visual analog scores of subjective effects and heart rate, these increases were similar during treatment with placebo and guanfacine. THC did not significantly affect performance of a recognition memory task or blood pressure while individuals were maintained on either treatment. Although preliminary, these results suggest that guanfacine warrants further testing as a potential treatment for cannabis-induced cognitive deficits.