Adverse Childhood Experiences and frailty in later life: a prospective population-based cohort study.

Background: The deficit accumulation method considers the ageing process underlying frailty as a random accumulation of health deficits.

Objective: Although Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) have consistently been associated with the onset of mental disorders and somatic diseases during adolescence and midlife, it remains unknown whether ACE still exert detrimental health effects in late life. Therefore, we examined cross-sectionally and prospectively the association between ACE and frailty among community-dwelling older people.

A 6-year prospective clinical cohort study on the bidirectional association between frailty and depressive disorder.

Introduction: Depressive disorder has been conceptualised as a condition of accelerated biological ageing. We operationalised a frailty index (FI) as marker for biological ageing aimed to explore the bidirectional, longitudinal association between frailty and either depressive symptoms or depressive disorder.

Methods: A cohort study with 6-year follow-up including 377 older (≥60 years) outpatients with a DSM-IV-defined depressive disorder and 132 never-depressed controls.

Prognostic effect of serum BDNF levels in late-life depression: Moderated by childhood trauma and SSRI usage?

Background: Brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) levels decline during depression and normalise after remission, although studies in older patient samples are inconsistent. Whether BDNF serum levels predict depression remission is unclear. We hypothesize that the predictive value of serum BDNF levels in late-life depression is moderated by selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRI) usage and early traumatization.

Unmyelinated tactile cutaneous nerves signal erotic sensations.

Introduction: Intrapersonal touch is a powerful tool for communicating emotions and can among many things evoke feelings of eroticism and sexual arousal. The peripheral neural mechanisms of erotic touch signaling have been less studied. C tactile afferents (unmyelinated low-threshold mechanoreceptors), known to underpin pleasant aspects of touch processing, have been posited to play an important role.

Chemotherapy with cisplatin, epirubicin and docetaxel in transitional cell urothelial cancer. Phase II trial.

Cisplatin (CDDP), epirubicin (EPI) and docetaxel have single agent activity against urothelial transitional cell carcinoma (TCC). We evaluated the efficacy and toxicity of this combination in locally advanced or metastatic urothelial TCC. Patients with urothelial TCC who had no prior chemotherapy (prior adjuvant chemotherapy > 6 months allowed) were eligible for entry the study.