Cpt1c Downregulation Causes Plasma Membrane Remodelling and Anthracycline Resistance in Breast Cancer.

Breast cancer (BC) is the most common malignancy in women worldwide. While the main systemic treatment option is anthracycline-containing chemotherapy, chemoresistance continues to be an obstacle to patient survival. Carnitine palmitoyltransferase 1C (CPT1C) has been described as a poor-prognosis marker for several tumour types, as it favours tumour growth and hinders cells from entering senescence. At the molecular level, CPT1C has been associated with lipid metabolism regulation and important lipidome changes. Since plasma membrane (PM) rigidity has been associated with reduced drug uptake, we explored whether CPT1C expression could be involved in PM remodelling and drug chemoresistance. Liquid chromatography-high resolution mass spectrometry (LC-HRMS) lipid analysis of PM-enriched fractions of MDA-MB-231 BC cells showed that CPT1C silencing increased PM phospholipid saturation, suggesting a rise in PM rigidity. Moreover, CPT1C silencing increased cell survival against doxorubicin (DOX) treatment in different BC cells due to reduced drug uptake. These findings, further complemented by ROC plotter analysis correlating lower CPT1C expression with a lower pathological complete response to anthracyclines in patients with more aggressive types of BC, suggest CPT1C as a novel predictive biomarker for BC chemotherapy.

Teamwork solutions for complex problems in psychotherapy: A systems thinking-based commentary.

INTRODUCTION: Most psychological treatments are administered in a one-to-one therapy format, which has proven effective but has limitations in complex clinical situations. Teamwork can help address these limitations by going beyond the one-to-one therapy approach and involving the client's professional and relational network in therapy interventions to promote and secure change. In this issue of Journal of Clinical Psychology: In Session five effective teamwork practices are presented illustrating how clinicians integrate teamwork into treatment delivery to improve outcomes in an array of cases presenting high complexity. PURPOSE: In this commentary section, we describe the role and essence of these teamwork practices from a systems thinking approach as a theoretical umbrella to understand the diversity of processes hindering and facilitating effective teamwork CONCLUSSION: From this approach we discuss the core skills that psychotherapists should train to master team working and interprofessional collaboration. The basic professional competence consists in the ability to foster and coordinate shared frames of understanding in case formulation. An advanced systemic skill is based on the ability to formulate and change relational patterns, given that interpersonal processes are the main key factor to understand barriers and facilitators of effective teamwork to overcome stalemated complex clinical situations.

Adaptation and psychometric properties of the spanish version of the yp-core (Young Person's Clinical Outcomes in Routine Evaluation).

INTRODUCTION: Given the increasing prevalence of mental health problems in the general population, it is indispensable to use assessment tools aimed to assess the outcome of therapeutic interventions in order to refine the process of psychological rehabilitation. METHOD: We describe the process of adaptation into Spanish and a first psychometric study of the Young Person's- Clinical Outcomes in Routine Evaluation (YP-CORE), an instrument designed to measure the outcome in terms of general distress of therapeutic interventions in young people (11-16 years). 104 adolescents participated in the clinical and 131 in the non-clinical samples. RESULTS: Analyses showed good levels of acceptability, adequate internal consistency and acceptable test-retest stability, with moderately high correlations between administrations. In addition, the instrument yielded significant correlations with all dimensions of the Youth Self Report, the highest being between both total scores. Crucially, discriminated between clinical and non-clinical samples and showed a small effect of age but a larger effect of gender, with higher scores for females. The Principal Component Analysis replicates the original structure. Cut-off scores to calculate the reliable and clinically significant change are provided. CONCLUSIONS: These results support initial use of the instrument though there are certain limitations that indicate the need for more research with larger and more representative samples, in which the psychometric properties of the instrument should be verified.

Fuzzy Cognitive Maps as a Tool for Identifying Cognitive Conflicts That Hinder the Adoption of Healthy Habits.

Implementing healthy lifestyle habits can take a great effort and sticking to such prescriptions is complicated. Failure rates amongst people seeking to adopt a healthier diet are estimated to be around 80%. Exploring the network of meanings that an individual associates with adopting habits such as healthy eating, maintaining the correct weight, and practising physical exercise can reveal the inconsistencies, obstacles, or psychological conflicts that hinder change and target-achievement. Fuzzy cognitive maps (FCM) can be of great utility in this task as they allow us to explore the structure of the personal meaning system of an individual as well as determine any obstacles and simulate hypothetical scenarios that project its future evolution. This can help to identify the foci of cognitive conflicts that hinder the adoption of healthy habits and establish more effective personalised intervention programmes that make it easier to maintain these habits.

Predictors of therapeutic outcome and process.

This article presents an intensive study of the outcome and process of the psychotherapeutic treatments conducted at the Blanquerna Psychotherapy Service in Barcelona. It analyzes in detail the relation between outcome (improvement) and process (therapeutic alliance). Specifically, it discusses (a) the therapeutic process in terms of the relation between therapeutic alliance and psychotherapy outcome and (b) the effects of the temporary weakening of the therapeutic alliance and temporary symptomatic relapse on therapeutic outcome and process. Two hundred thirty-nine clients were included in the study, and the assessment instruments were the CORE Outcome Measure and the short version of the Working Alliance Inventory. In addition to good outcome of psychotherapy and maintenance of therapeutic change after treatment, the results also demonstrated the significance of different aspects of the therapeutic alliance as predictors of the therapeutic outcome and process.

Impact of defense style on brief psychotherapy of postpartum depression.

In this study, we evaluated the impact of defense style (DS) on outcome and its relation to the therapeutic alliance. Women with postpartum depression were allocated to a brief psychotherapeutic intervention. To evaluate DS and the therapeutic alliance, the Defense Style Questionnaire and the Working Alliance Inventory were employed. The main outcome was the Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale score at end point; anxiety and retention in treatment were also evaluated. Fifty-nine patients were included; 46 completed the therapy and 65.4% responded (Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale score <10). Intense use of immature defenses was related to persistence of depression and anxiety symptoms at end point, even when controlled for potential confounders. Results tended to confirm a hierarchy of DSs independently of the alliance. Clinicians should be aware of possible differential responses to brief psychotherapies related to DS.

Oxime palladacycles revisited: stone-stable complexes nonetheless very active catalysts.

Our review critically presents the main achievements, advantages, and limitations of oxime palladacycles as high-turnover catalysts for Heck, as well as homo- and cross-coupling reactions such as Suzuki-Miyaura, Stille, Ullmann-type, Cassar-Heck-Sonogashira, sila-Sonogashira, Glaser-type, Hiyama, and alkoxycarbonylation reactions. New developments in this area are reviewed from a mechanistic and synthetic point of view. The role of oxime palladacycles as a source of highly active zero-valent palladium species is also discussed.

Mono- and beta,beta-double-Heck reactions of alpha,beta-unsaturated carbonyl compounds in aqueous media.

Optimized reaction conditions for the mono- and beta,beta-diarylation of electron-deficient alkenes in aqueous media catalyzed either by a p-hydroxyacetophenone oxime-derived palladacycle or by palladium(II) acetate under phosphine-free conditions and in the presence of (dicyclohexyl)methylamine as base are described. Regioselective monoarylation of unsubstituted and substituted alpha,beta-unsaturated carbonyl compounds takes place with aryl iodides at 120 degrees C in water. Aqueous N,N-dimethylacetamide (DMA), tetra-n-butylammonium bromide (TBAB) as additive, and the palladacycle as catalyst are the most efficient conditions for the coupling with aryl bromides, good stereoselectivities being also obtained in the arylation of crotonates and itaconates, whereas cinnamic derivatives afford lower steroselectivity, with the exception of cinnamic acid and nitrile. beta,beta-Diarylation of unsubstituted alpha,beta-unsaturated carbonyl compounds can be controlled by using higher loading of the palladacycle and can be performed in refluxing water for aryl iodides, whereas DMA must be used for aryl bromides. Microwave irradiation can be used in the monoarylation of tert-butyl acrylate with aryl iodides in water or the coupling between ethyl cinnamate and aryl bromides in aqueous DMA.

Measuring coping style and resistance among Spanish and Argentine samples: development of the Systematic Treatment Selection Self-Report in Spanish.

This article reports the reliability and validity of the Coping Style and Resistance subscales of the Systematic Treatment Selection Self-Report (STS-SR) scale after its translation to Spanish. The English versions of the STS system identify eight empirically derived patient variables that have been found to moderate the effects of various classes of mental health treatment procedures. Research on these dimensions as treatment indicators, as assessed both by clinicians and through patient self-reports, indicates that they increase the efficiency and effectiveness of treatment among English-speaking samples. This article reports a study of the convergent and discriminant validity of two of the subscales, Coping Style and Trait Resistance. The subscales were translated English into Spanish and administered to large Spanish and Argentine subject pools, along with established measures of the same and related constructs. Results revealed that both scales possessed good internal consistency and adequate discriminant validity. The implications of these findings are discussed.

Constructivismo y construccionismo en terapia familiar: Pragmática, semántica y retórica / Constructivism and constructionism in family therapy: Pragmatic, semantics and rhetoric

Este artículo presenta una visión constructivista/construccionista de la terapia familiar, desde un enfoque centrado en las dimensiones narrativas y retóricas de la interacción. Después de trazar una breve historia del surgimiento del movimiento constructivista en el seno de la terapia familiar sistémica, el artículo presenta una concepción de los sistemas humanos como comunidades de interlocutores activamente implicados en la atribución de significado a la experiencia. El significado se equipara a la inteligibilidad, y se destaca la dimensión narrativa de los problemas humanos que conducen a la terapia. La psicoterapia se define como una empresa de co-construcción narrativa en la que tras la elicitación de las narrativas dominantes...