A co-designed consumer checklist to support people with eating disorders to locate evidence-based treatment.

Identifying a therapist with expertise in treating eating disorders (EDs) can be a daunting process for a consumer, resulting in delayed access to evidence-based treatment, prolonging unnecessary suffering. We developed a consumer checklist designed to empower consumers to locate evidence-based treatment earlier. We co-designed (researchers and people with lived experience of an ED) a 15-item consumer checklist, for use in a meeting with a potential therapist. A survey about the checklist was sent out to people with lived experience and clinicians, seeking quantitative endorsement of each item's helpfulness in the checklist, and inviting qualitative feedback. Seventeen people with lived experience and 11 clinicians gave feedback. The items were rated as being helpful, with overlap between the two groups as to the most helpful items. Both groups rated the checklist as likely to help locate effective treatment earlier. The checklist forms a basis for a useful consumer tool in their treatment journey. Examination of its uptake and impact on outcomes for consumers seeking treatment is recommended.

Cognitive late effects following allogeneic stem cell transplantation in haematological cancer patients.

OBJECTIVE: The objective of this exploratory study was to determine the presence and correlates of self-reported cognition in a sample of haematological cancer patients who had undergone allogeneic stem cell transplantation (SCT). METHODS: Haematological cancer patients (n = 30) who had undergone allogeneic SCT between one and five years previously and age-matched control participants (n = 30) completed questionnaires assessing cognition, affect, sleep quality and fatigue and an assessment of premorbid IQ. RESULTS: Patients reported significantly poorer perceived cognitive ability (d = 1.12) and greater perceived cognitive impairment (d = 0.96) than controls. Lower fatigue was significantly associated with greater perceived cognitive ability (r = 0.75 patients and controls) and less perceived cognitive impairment (r = 0.80 patients; r = 0.57 controls). Interestingly, depression was significantly correlated with perceived cognitive ability in the control group only (r = 0.80). Hierarchical multiple regressions showed that fatigue was a significant predictor of perceived cognitive ability in patients, accounting for 56% of the variance. CONCLUSIONS: This study established that self-reported cognitive ability and cognitive impairment was significantly poorer in haematological cancer patients than controls. Furthermore, fatigue was significantly associated with perceived cognitive ability in patients. Future research should focus on identifying interventions that target fatigue in allogeneic SCT recipients in order to improve quality of life throughout survivorship.

Removal of perineuronal nets disrupts recall of a remote fear memory.

Throughout life animals learn to recognize cues that signal danger and instantaneously initiate an adequate threat response. Memories of such associations may last a lifetime and far outlast the intracellular molecules currently found to be important for memory processing. The memory engram may be supported by other more stable molecular components, such as the extracellular matrix structure of perineuronal nets (PNNs). Here, we show that recall of remote, but not recent, visual fear memories in rats depend on intact PNNs in the secondary visual cortex (V2L). Supporting our behavioral findings, increased synchronized theta oscillations between V2L and basolateral amygdala, a physiological correlate of successful recall, was absent in rats with degraded PNNs in V2L. Together, our findings suggest a role for PNNs in remote memory processing by stabilizing the neural network of the engram.