Patients with borderline personality disorder and comorbid PTSD show biased attention for threat in the facial dot-probe task.

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: Biased attention to threat is likely to play a crucial role in the dysfunctional emotion-related information processing in borderline personality disorder (BPD). However, the role of comorbid posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) has not yet been fully disentangled. METHODS: BPD patients with (n = 24) and without (n = 46) PTSD, 35 patients with Cluster-C personality disorder and 52 non-patients participated in the facial dot-probe task with angry, happy and neutral faces during automatic (100 ms), controlled (600 ms), and later (1200 ms) stages of information processing. RESULTS: BPD patients showed a greater congruency effect to angry faces during the controlled stage of processing than controls. Specifically, in BPD with PTSD compared to controls, this effect was due to difficulties disengaging from threat, indicated by slower reaction times to incongruent angry targets compared to neutral trials. Regarding automatic and later stages of information processing, there was no attentional bias (AB) in BPD. None of the groups revealed biased attention for happy faces at any stages of information processing. LIMITATIONS: We did not include a control group of PTSD patients without BPD. Therefore, we cannot rule out that the present AB in BPD is mainly due to PTSD-specific psychopathology. CONCLUSIONS: These findings provide first evidence for an AB towards angry faces and difficulties disengaging from these threat-related social cues in adult BPD patients. Although BPD patients in general demonstrated an AB when compared with controls, this effect was especially pronounced for BPD with PTSD, suggesting a significant effect of trauma-related psychopathology on social attention in BPD.

Biased Attention to Facial Expressions of Ambiguous Emotions in Borderline Personality Disorder: An Eye-Tracking Study.

Preliminary evidence suggests that biased attention could be crucial in fostering the emotion recognition abnormalities in borderline personality disorder (BPD). We compared BPD patients to Cluster-C personality disorder (CC) patients and non-patients (NP) regarding emotion recognition in ambiguous faces and their visual attention allocation to the eyes. The role of comorbid posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in BPD regarding emotion recognition and visual attention was explored. BPD patients fixated the eyes of angry/happy, sad/happy, and fearful/sad blends longer than non-patients. This visual attention pattern was mainly driven by BPD patients with PTSD. This subgroup also demonstrated longer fixations than CC patients and a trend towards longer fixations than BPD patients without PTSD for the angry/happy and fearful/sad blends. Emotion recognition was not altered in BPD. Biased visual attention towards the eyes of ambiguous facial expressions in BPD might be due to trauma-related attentional bias rather than to impairments in facial emotion recognition.

Efficiency of natural substances to protect Beauveria bassiana conidia from UV radiation.

BACKGROUND: Solar radiation is assumed to be a major factor limiting the efficacy of entomopathogenic fungi used as biocontrol agents in open field applications. We evaluated 12 natural UV-protective co-formulants for their effect on the survival of UV-exposed Beauveria bassiana spores on agar plates, colza leaf discs and in the field. RESULTS: Colony-forming unit (CFU) counts of unformulated conidia on agar plates and leaf discs dropped to ≤ 50% after exposure to UV radiation. The highest UV protection was achieved with humic acid, which provided > 90% protection of UV-B-exposed conidia in laboratory experiments. In the field, 10% humic acid increased spore persistence up to 87% at 7 days after application. Sesame and colza oil also provided high UV protection in both assays (> 73% and > 70%, respectively). CONCLUSIONS: This study shows that it is possible to increase the persistence of B. bassiana spores under exposure to UV radiation by formulation with natural UV-protective additives. UV protectants might, therefore, increase the efficacy of entomopathogenic fungi as biocontrol agents in open field applications. © 2018 The Authors. Pest Management Science published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of Society of Chemical Industry.

Attentional Bias for Emotional Stimuli in Borderline Personality Disorder: A Meta-Analysis.

BACKGROUND: In borderline personality disorder (BPD), attentional bias (AB) to emotional stimuli may be a core component in disorder pathogenesis and maintenance. SAMPLING: 11 emotional Stroop task (EST) studies with 244 BPD patients, 255 nonpatients (NPs) and 95 clinical controls and 4 visual dot-probe task (VDPT) studies with 151 BPD patients or subjects with BPD features and 62 NPs were included. METHODS: We conducted two separate meta-analyses for AB in BPD. One meta-analysis focused on the EST for generally negative and BPD-specific/personally relevant negative words. The other meta-analysis concentrated on the VDPT for negative and positive facial stimuli. RESULTS: There is evidence for an AB towards generally negative emotional words compared to NPs (standardized mean difference, SMD = 0.311) and to other psychiatric disorders (SMD = 0.374) in the EST studies. Regarding BPD-specific/personally relevant negative words, BPD patients reveal an even stronger AB than NPs (SMD = 0.454). The VDPT studies indicate a tendency towards an AB to positive facial stimuli but not negative stimuli in BPD patients compared to NPs. CONCLUSIONS: The findings rather reflect an AB in BPD to generally negative and BPD-specific/personally relevant negative words rather than an AB in BPD towards facial stimuli, and/or a biased allocation of covert attentional resources to negative emotional stimuli in BPD and not a bias in focus of visual attention. Further research regarding the role of childhood traumatization and comorbid anxiety disorders may improve the understanding of these underlying processes.

Immune Reconstitution After Allogeneic Hematopoietic Stem Cell Transplantation and Association With Occurrence and Outcome of Invasive Aspergillosis.

BACKGROUND: Invasive aspergillosis (IA) remains a leading cause of morbidity and mortality in patients receiving allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT). To date, no reliable immunological biomarkers for management and outcome of IA exist. Here, we investigated reconstitution of antifungal immunity in patients during the first 12 months after HSCT and correlated it with IA. METHODS: Fifty-one patients were included, 9 with probable/proven IA. We determined quantitative and qualitative reconstitution of polymorphonuclear (PMN), CD4, CD8, and natural killer (NK) cells against Aspergillus fumigatus over 5 time points and compared the values to healthy donors. RESULTS: Absolute CD4 and CD8 cell counts, antigen-specific T-cell responses, and killing capacity of PMN against A. fumigatus were significantly decreased in all patients over 12 months. In patients with probable/proven IA, reactive oxygen species (ROS) production tended to be lower compared to patients without IA, and absolute NK-cell counts remained below 200 cells/µL. Patients with well-controlled IA showed significantly higher ROS production and NK-cell counts compared to patients with poor outcome. CONCLUSIONS: This study highlights the importance of functional PMN, T-cell, and NK-cell immunity for the outcome of IA. Larger multicenter studies should address the potential use of NK-cell counts for the management of antifungal therapy.

Interconception care for women with prior gestational diabetes mellitus.

The diagnosis of gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM) signals greater pregnancy risk but also increased lifelong risk of developing diabetes and cardiovascular disease. In women with GDM, insulin resistance exceeds that observed in normal pregnancy and to varying degrees may persist or worsen after birth. Therefore, during postpartum and interconception periods, women with a history of GDM must be monitored for manifestations of increasing insulin resistance, hyperglycemia, dyslipidemia, hypertension, and increased adiposity. Care of women with prior GDM in the postpartum and interconception periods affords clinicians a unique opportunity for targeted screening and health promotion. The objective of this review was to synthesize evidence related to interconception care for women following a pregnancy complicated by GDM and to suggest principles of care: 1) case finding and multiple patient/clinician reminders for women with prior GDM are necessary so that screening occurs in the postpartum through interconception periods; 2) monitoring of metabolic (glucose) and cardiovascular risk (lipids, blood pressure, adiposity) should occur at regular intervals and more often in women with additional risk factors such as insulin use during pregnancy, early diagnosis of GDM, obesity, prediabetes, and dyslipidemia; 3) breastfeeding and use of long-term contraception should be encouraged; and 4) lifestyle modifications that are effective in preventing and delaying disease should be encouraged.