Early Life Sexual Trauma and Later Life Genitourinary Dysfunction and Functional Disability in Women.

BACKGROUND: Past research has examined the health outcomes of early sexual trauma in reproductive age women, but little is known about potential long-term effects in older age. OBJECTIVE: To examine associations between early life sexual trauma and later life sexual/genitourinary dysfunction and general functional disability in women. DESIGN: Cross-sectional analysis of nationally representative observational data from the National Social Life, Health, and Aging Project (2010-2011) PARTICIPANTS: One thousand seven hundred forty-five US women aged ≥ 50 years MAIN MEASURES: Two forms of early life sexual trauma (childhood sexual abuse and unwanted first sexual experience), sexual/genitourinary dysfunction (pain during sex, lack of pleasure during sex, urinary incontinence, other urinary symptoms), and general functional disability (difficulty performing 7 activities of daily living (ADLs) or 8 instrumental activities of daily living (IADLs)), assessed by interview and questionnaire. KEY RESULTS: Of 1745 women, 11% reported a history of childhood sexual abuse and 39% an unwanted first sexual experience. Childhood sexual abuse was associated with later life sexual/genitourinary dysfunction (pain during sex [OR 1.9, 95% CI 1.1-3.3], other urinary problems [OR 1.9, 95% CI 1.2-3.1]), and difficulty with multiple ADLs/IADLs (walking across the room [OR 1.9, 95% CI 1.2-3.1], getting in or out of bed [OR 2.0, 95% CI 1.2-3.3], bathing [OR 2.0, 95% CI 1.2-3.5], prepping meals [OR 2.4, 95% CI 1.5-3.8], shopping for food [OR 1.6, 95% CI 1.0-2.4], and completing light work [OR 1.6, 95% CI 1.0-2.4]), after adjusting for age, race, and education. Unwanted first sexual experience was associated with later life lack of pleasure with sex (OR 1.7, 95% CI 1.1-2.5) and difficulty with ADLs/IADLs (walking one block [OR 1.5, 95% CI 1.1-2.1], completing light work [OR 1.6, 95% CI 1.1-2.1]) in adjusted analyses. CONCLUSIONS: Early sexual trauma may be an under-recognized marker of risk of aging-related functional decline in women. Findings underline the importance of providing trauma-informed care for women across the aging spectrum.

Neural activation associated with outgroup helping in adolescent rats.

Prosocial behavior, helping others in need in particular, occurs preferentially in response to the perceived distress of one's own group members or ingroup. To investigate the development of ingroup bias, neural activity during a helping test was analyzed in adolescent and adult rats. Although adults selectively released trapped ingroup members, adolescent rats helped both ingroup and outgroup members, suggesting that ingroup bias emerges in adulthood. Analysis of brain-wide neural activity, indexed by expression of the early-immediate gene c-Fos, revealed increased activity for ingroup members across a broad set of regions previously associated with empathy. Adolescents showed reduced hippocampal and insular activity and increased orbitofrontal cortex activity compared to adults. Non-helper adolescents demonstrated increased amygdala connectivity. These findings demonstrate that biases for group-dependent prosocial behavior develop with age in rats and suggest that specific brain regions contribute to prosocial selectivity, pointing to possible targets for the functional modulation of ingroup bias.