Given the prevalence of adolescent depression and the modest effects of current treatments, research ought to inform development of effective intervention strategies. Self-compassion is inversely associated with depression, and self-compassion interventions have demonstrated promising effects on reducing depression. However, little is known about the neural mechanisms underlying that relationship. Maladaptive self-processing is a characteristic of depression that contributes to the onset and chronicity of depression. Because our own face is an automatic and direct cue for self-processing, this study investigated whether self-compassion was associated with neural responses during sad v. neutral self-face recognition and explore their relationship with depression severity in depressed adolescents and healthy controls (HCs).

During functional magnetic resonance imaging, 81 depressed youth and 37 HCs were instructed to identify whether morphed self or other faces with sad, happy, or neutral expressions resembled their own.

Self-compassion correlated negatively with activity during sad v. neutral self-face recognition in the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex in the total sample, and in the right posterior cingulate cortex/precuneus in HCs, respectively. In depressed adolescents, higher self-compassion correlated with lower activity during sad v. neutral self-face recognition in the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC), implying that less cognitive effort might be needed to avoid dwelling on sad self-faces and/or regulate negative affect induced by them. Moreover, higher self-compassion mediated the relationship between lower DLPFC activity and reduced depression severity.

Our findings imply that DLPFC activity might be a biological marker of a successful self-compassion intervention as potential treatment for adolescent depression.

International studies have shown that patients want their spiritual needs attended to at the end of life. The present authors developed a project to investigate people's understanding of spirituality and spiritual care practices in New Zealand (NZ) hospices.

A mixed-methods approach included 52 semistructured interviews and a survey of 642 patients, family members, and staff from 25 (78%) of NZ's hospices. We employed a generic qualitative design and analysis to capture the experiences and understandings of participants' spirituality and spiritual care, while a cross-sectional survey yielded population level information.

Our findings suggest that spirituality is broadly understood and considered important for all three of the populations studied. The patient and family populations had high spiritual needs that included a search for (1) meaning, (2) peace of mind, and (3) a degree of certainty in an uncertain world. The healthcare professionals in the hospices surveyed seldom explicitly met the needs of patients and families. Staff had spiritual needs, but organizational support was sometimes lacking in attending to these needs.

As a result of our study, which was the first nationwide study in NZ to examine spirituality in hospice care, Hospice New Zealand has developed a spirituality professional development program. Given that spirituality was found to be important to the majority of our participants, it is hoped that the adoption of such an approach will impact on spiritual care for patients and families in NZ hospices.

Caregivers often are unprepared for their role yet serve as the frontline in the provision of palliative care services. The aim of our study was to explore family caregivers' experiences from their perspective as they cared for dying relatives.

Using the Photovoice methodology, ten unpaid family caregivers took photographs depicting issues they experienced as informal caregivers of an ill family member who had less than a year to live. Each participant met with the first author individually four to six times and explained their role as caregiver through photographs and stories.

The results were clustered into seven themes: physical demands, emotional/spiritual stress, preparing for the future, securing help, medication management, navigating the agencies, and relationships.

Caregivers perform a variety of tasks, often under stress. This study highlights the main areas where problems lie and the areas that palliative care health professionals need to be aware of so they can assist and educate caregivers, with the goal of finding solutions to the burdens of care. The themes were found to be intertwined, showing the complexity of the caregiving role.

Previous in vivo studies of schizophrenia with dopamine D2 receptor radioligands have yielded contradictory results. No prior study has used multiple scans to examine within-subject clinical change.

Twenty-one patients were studied with [1231]-iodobenzamide single photon emission computed tomography about two weeks after neuroleptic withdrawal. Thirteen of the 21 completed a second scan about four weeks after neuroleptic withdrawal. Sixteen controls were scanned for comparison.

There was no significant difference between groups in [1231]-iodobenzamide uptake at either scanning session. No significant correlations with demographic variables (age, illness duration, drug-free period), or clinical ratings (positive and negative symptoms, movement disorder) were observed at either scanning session. There was a significant correlation between change in [1231]-iodobenzamide uptake and change in negative symptom ratings for the subjects who underwent two scans (r=0.72, P < 0.05)

Worsening of negative symptoms may be associated with increased availability of striatal D2 receptors, perhaps because of decreased concentrations of endogenous dopamine.