People experience various negative emotions when they encounter stressful events, and these negative emotions contribute to the onset of illnesses. These emotional responses are not limited to just one; a person can experience multiple emotions at once, and the primary emotional reactions can vary depending on the severity and duration of the illness or life events. This is reason why we created a self-report scale to assess short-term emotional responses, focusing on the current emotional state experienced subjectively by patients.

The purpose of this study was to develop an affective response scale (ARS) and examine its validity and reliability.

We established clusters of affective via a literature review and developed preliminary items based on the structure. We conducted expert content validation to converge on the final items, followed by construct validity and reliability analyses.

The research findings indicate that the Affective Response Scale was composed of three main dimensions: anxiety, anger, and depression. Content validity results confirmed the validity of most items. The scale developed in this study was found to be valid in both exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses, and it was identified to be stable and consistent through the analysis of the internal reliability.

These results indicate that the ARS is highly reliable and valid, and that it can be utilized as an effective measure of the patient’s emotion and its severity.

None Declared

It has been several years since the World Health Organization (WHO) advocated for shared decision-making(SDM) models when developing treatment plans for individuals with mental illnesses. It is emphasizing the importance of actively involving patients in expressing their opinions and sharing treatment-related information. However, few clinicians accept patients’ subjective views in clinical practice. Given that patients’ subjective beliefs about their symptoms significantly impact treatment satisfaction, prognosis, and adherence, it is essential to assess these perceptions. However, few studies have been conducted to assess patients’ subjective beliefs, their mental representation, of their disease. Therefore, this study aims to develop Interview that enable the utilization of patients’ cognitive representations of their mental illnesses in clinical practice.

The primary objective of this study is to develop a semi-structured interview and a self-report scale to evaluate patients’ mental representations of their illnesses. Subsequently, validate the reliability and validity of these tools as psychological assessments.

An initial structure for both the semi-structured interview and self-report scale was established through a literature review of existing disease representation measurements. Subsequently, expert panel discussions and further literature reviews were conducted to refine the structure and content of both tools. Content validity for both the interview and self-report scale was assessed by a panel of nine experts and a group of ten students. Following this, the developed interview tool was subjected to a validity analysis with clinical patients using Missick’s six validity criteria(Content, Substantive, Structural, Generalizability, External, Consequential).

Content validity index (CVI) values for the overall structure indicated that all subdomains scored above 0.8, demonstrating the appropriateness of the interview tool’s five subdomains: symptoms, causes, temporal aspects, impact, and treatment and control. Content validity assessment for individual items revealed that some items within the “causes of the disease” subdomain, specifically stress-related factors, scored below 0.6, prompting necessary item modifications. All other factors achieved CVI scores of 0.6 or higher. Facial validity assessment yielded favorable results for all items in the self-report scale. All validity was demonstrated to be satisfactory.

This study has provided evidence that the developed tools are reliable and valid instruments for measuring patients’ perceptions of their illnesses, offering a trustworthy means to assess these vital cognitive representations in clinical practice.

None Declared

The longitudinal relationship between depression and the risk of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease is uncertain. We examined: (a) the association between depressive symptoms and incident hepatic steatosis (HS), both with and without liver fibrosis; and (b) the influence of obesity on this association.

A cohort of 142 005 Korean adults with neither HS nor excessive alcohol consumption at baseline were followed for up to 8.9 years. The validated Center for Epidemiologic Studies-Depression score (CES-D) was assessed at baseline, and subjects were categorised as non-depressed (a CES-D < 8, reference) or depression (CES-D ⩾ 16). HS was diagnosed by ultrasonography. Liver fibrosis was assessed by the fibrosis-4 index (FIB-4). Parametric proportional hazards models were used to estimate the adjusted hazard ratios (aHRs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs).

During a median follow-up of 4.0 years, 27 810 people with incident HS and 134 with incident HS plus high FIB-4 were identified. Compared with the non-depressed category, the aHR (95% CIs) for incident HS was 1.24 (1.15–1.34) for CES-D ⩾ 16 among obese individuals, and 1.00 (0.95–1.05) for CES-D ⩾ 16 among non-obese individuals (p for interaction with obesity <0.001). The aHR (95% CIs) for developing HS plus high FIB-4 was 3.41 (1.33–8.74) for CES-D ⩾ 16 among obese individuals, and 1.22 (0.60–2.47) for CES-D ⩾ 16 among non-obese individuals (p for interaction = 0.201).

Depression was associated with an increased risk of incident HS and HS plus high probability of advanced fibrosis, especially among obese individuals.

The enhanced error monitoring in patients with obsessive–compulsive disorder (OCD), typically measured with the error-related negativity (ERN), has been found to be temporally stable and independent of symptom expression. Here, we examined whether the error monitoring in patients with OCD could be experimentally modulated by individually tailored symptom provocation.

Twenty patients with OCD and 20 healthy controls performed a flanker task in which OCD-relevant or neutral pictures were presented prior to a flanker stimulus. An individualized stimulus set consisting of the most provoking images in terms of OCD symptoms was selected for each patient with OCD. Response-locked event-related potentials were recorded and used to examine the error-related brain activity.

Patients with OCD showed larger ERN amplitudes than did control subjects in both the OCD-symptom provocation and neutral conditions. Additionally, while patients with OCD exhibited a significant increase in the ERN under the OCD-symptom provocation condition when compared with the neutral condition, control subjects showed no variation in the ERN between the conditions.

Our results strengthen earlier findings of hyperactive error monitoring in OCD, as indexed by higher ERN amplitudes in patients with OCD than in controls. Importantly, we showed that the patients’ overactive error-signals were experimentally enhanced by individually tailored OCD-symptom triggers, thus suggesting convincing evidence between OCD-symptoms and ERN. Such findings imply that therapeutic interventions should target affective regulation in order to alleviate the perceived threatening value of OCD triggers.

Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) is a chronic, relapsing mental illness. Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors block serotonin transporters (SERTs) and are the mainstay of treatment for OCD. SERT abnormalities are reported in drug-free patients with OCD, but it is not known what happens to SERT levels during treatment. This is important as alterations in SERT levels in patients under treatment could underlie poor response, or relapse during or after treatment. The aim of the present study was first to validate a novel approach to measuring SERT levels in people taking treatment and then to investigate SERT binding potential (BP) using [11C]DASB PET in patients with OCD currently treated with escitalopram in comparison with healthy controls.

Twelve patients and age- and sex-matched healthy controls were enrolled. The patients and healthy controls underwent serial PET scans after administration of escitalopram and blood samples for drug concentrations were collected simultaneously with the scans. Drug-free BPs were obtained by using an inhibitory Emax model we developed previously.

The inhibitory Emax model was able to accurately predict drug-free SERT BP in people taking drug treatment. The drug-free BP in patients with OCD currently treated with escitalopram was significantly different from those in healthy volunteers [Cohen's d = 0.03 (caudate), 1.16 (putamen), 1.46 (thalamus), −5.67 (dorsal raphe nucleus)].

This result extends previous findings showing SERT abnormalities in drug-free patients with OCD by indicating that altered SERT availability is seen in OCD despite treatment. This could account for poor response and the high risk of relapse in OCD.

Previous studies have implicated the relationship between environmental phthalate exposure and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) symptoms of childhood, but no studies have been conducted in children who have a confirmed diagnosis of ADHD obtained through meticulous diagnostic testing. We aimed to determine whether phthalate metabolites in urine would be higher in children with ADHD than in those without ADHD and would correlate with symptom severity and cortical thickness in ADHD children.

A cross-sectional examination of urine phthalate metabolite concentrations was performed; scores for ADHD symptoms, externalizing problems, and continuous performance tests were obtained from 180 children with ADHD, and brain-imaging data were obtained from 115 participants. For the control group, children without ADHD (N = 438) were recruited. Correlations between phthalate metabolite concentrations and clinical measures and brain cortical thickness were investigated.

Concentrations of phthalate metabolites, particularly the di(2-ethylhexyl) phthalate (DEHP) metabolite, were significantly higher in boys with ADHD than in boys without ADHD. Concentrations of the di-n-butyl phthalate (DBP) metabolite were significantly higher in the combined or hyperactive-impulsive subtypes compared to the inattentive subtype, and the metabolite was positively correlated with the severity of externalizing symptoms. Concentrations of the DEHP metabolite were negatively correlated with cortical thickness in the right middle and superior temporal gyri.

The results of this study suggest an association between phthalate concentrations and both the diagnosis and symptom severity of ADHD. Imaging findings suggest a negative impact of phthalates on regional cortical maturation in children with ADHD.

This study was performed to assess the efficacy and safety profile of combination treatment with S-1 and cisplatin in patients with locally advanced squamous cell carcinoma of the head and neck.

Eligibility criteria comprised: histologically confirmed squamous cell carcinoma of the head and neck; stage three or four disease with no evidence of distant metastasis; evaluable lesions; adequate organ function; age 20–80 years; and a performance status of two or less. Cisplatin was infused over one hour on day one (75 mg/m2) and S-1 was administered orally for 14 consecutive days (days two to 15). The dosages of S-1 were calculated according to the patients' body surface area: 50 mg twice a day (body surface area <1.5 m2) or 60 mg twice a day (body surface area >1.5 m2). Each course was repeated every three weeks. After two courses, tumour response was evaluated by computed tomography and laryngoscopy. If a response was evident (either complete or partial), the patient received one more course of chemotherapy, before undergoing radical treatment such as radiotherapy or surgery.

All 30 patients were assessable for toxicity, and 29 patients for treatment response. The overall response was 89.7 per cent (complete response: nine; partial response: 17). The two-year estimated overall survival rate was 79.2 per cent. Adverse reactions occurred 128 times during 81 courses in the 30 cases. The most common grade three to four adverse event was neutropenia, which occurred in eight patients. Cases of non-haematological grade three or four toxicity included nausea and vomiting in four patients, stomatitis in two and diarrhoea in one.

S-1 plus cisplatin combination chemotherapy is effective against locally advanced squamous cell carcinoma of the head and neck, with only mild toxicity.

This is a copy of the slides presented at the meeting but not formally written up for the volume.

Description: Semiconductor physics contains a rich body of theory and working designs. However, their material properties seem to be reaching their limits. Perovskite oxides on the other hand have abundant physical properties, but are still under active investigation. The advent of RHEED-monitoring of pulsed laser deposition allows for the fabrication of structures with single unit cell (4 Å) thick layers. In this way we may be able to fabricate quantum well structures for both applications and fundamental investigations. Superlattices of the Mott insulator LaTiO3 (LTO) and the band gap insulator SrTiO3 (STO) form such a structure. The superlattices are metallic, both as-grown and post-annealed [1]. This has been attributed to the existence of metallic states at the interfaces between LTO and STO [2]. At these interfaces the electron density is found to extend about 10 Å into the STO. However, theoretically, the required length scale for quantum confinement is of the order of 4 Å. A possible way to increase this confinement is to use a buffer material with a larger band gap than that of LTO (similar to semiconductor band gap engineering) and/or with a lower dielectric constant [2]. LaAlO3 (LAO) is such a material (ΔELAO = 5.6 eV vs. ΔESTO = 3.2 eV, εLAO = 24 vs. εSTO = 300). Here we report on the growth of LTO/LAO superlattices on STO substrates. As-grown superlattices of LTO/LAO are metallic, while post-annealing turns them insulating. This may be explained from a disorder-order transition in a 2D Mott-Hubbard model [3]. XPS and EELS measurements of the titanium valence show interesting differences for LTO layers close to and far away from the sample surface. The former, for thin LAO capping layers, show the presence of Ti4+ while the latter only have Ti3+. Hard XPS of samples with varying capping layer thickness shows an exponential dependence of the Ti3+ contents on a length scale of about 5 unit cells. [1] A. Ohtomo et al., Nature 419, 378-380 (2002). [2] S. Okamoto & A.J. Millis, Phys. Rev. B 70, 075101 (2004). [3] D. Heidarian & N. Trivedi, Phys. Rev. Lett. 93, 126401 (2004).