The prevalence of pain in bipolar disorder: a systematic review and large-scale meta-analysis.

OBJECTIVE: To conduct a meta-analysis investigating the prevalence of pain in people with bipolar disorder (BD). METHOD: A systematic review and random effects meta-analysis searching major electronic databases from inception till 01/2014 in accordance with the PRISMA statement. We included articles reporting quantitative data on the prevalence of pain in people with BD with or without a healthy control group. Two independent authors conducted searches, extracted data, and completed methodological quality assessment. RESULTS: Twenty two cross-sectional studies were included, representing 12,375,644 individuals (BD n=171,352, n controls=12,204,292). The prevalence of pain in people with BD was 28.9% (95% CI=16.4-43.4%, BD n=171,352). The relative risk (RR) of pain in BD compared to controls was 2.14 (95% CI=1.67-2.75%, n=12,342,577). The prevalence of migraine was 14.2% (95% CI=10.6-18.3%, BD n=127,905), and the RR was 3.30 (95% CI=2.27-4.80%, n=6,732,220).About 23.7% (95% CI=13.1-36.3%, n=106,214) of people with BD experienced chronic pain. Age, percentage of males, methodological quality, and method of BD classification did not explain the observed heterogeneity. CONCLUSION: People with BD experience significantly increased levels of pain (particularly chronic pain and migraine). The assessment and treatment of pain should form an integral part of the management of BD.

Walking the line: a randomised trial on the effects of a short term walking programme on cognition in dementia.

BACKGROUND: Walking has proven to be beneficial for cognition in healthy sedentary older people. The aim of this study was to examine the effects of a walking intervention on cognition in older people with dementia. METHODS: 97 older nursing home residents with moderate dementia (mean age 85.4 years; 79 female participants; mean Mini-Mental State Examination 17.7) were randomly allocated to the experimental or control condition. Participants assigned to the experimental condition walked for 30 min, 5 days a week, for 6 weeks. To control for personal communication, another group received social visits in the same frequency. Neuropsychological tests were assessed at baseline, directly after the 6 week intervention and again 6 weeks later. Apolipoprotein E (ApoE) genotype was determined. RESULTS: Differences in cognition between both groups at the three assessments were calculated using a linear mixed model. Outcome measures included performance on tests that formed three domains: a memory domain, an executive function domain and a total cognition domain. Results indicate that there were no significant time x group interaction effects or any time x group x ApoE4 interaction effects. CONCLUSION: Possible explanations for the lack of a beneficial effect of the walking programme on cognition could be the level of physical activation of the intervention or the high frequency of comorbid cardiovascular disease in the present population of older people with dementia.

[Pain and physical (in)activity in relation to cognition and behaviour in dementia]. / Pijn en bewegen in relatie tot cognitie en gedrag bij dementie.

Older persons with dementia may become confronted with a decline in the level of physical activity. Indeed, a positive relationship between physical activity and cognition has been demonstrated. Although the causality of this relationship needs to be confirmed in advanced dementia, particularly animal experimental studies show the possible negative influence of restrained physical activity on behavior of patients with dementia. Patients with dementia, who get immobilized because of agitation and restlessness, may show an increase in these two symptoms. Another cause for reduced physical activity or inactivity may be the experience of pain. Pain experience may even increase in dementia by neuropathological changes in the central nervous system. There is an increasing (inter)national interest for the development of a more reliable assessment and treatment of pain, for the causality of the relationship between pain and physical (in)activity, and for the causality of the relationship between physical (in)activity and cognition in dementia. In the present paper, the various topics will be addressed in this order.

A fast and convenient MALDI-MS based proteomic approach: identification of components scaffolded by the actin cytoskeleton of activated human thrombocytes.

A recently developed concentration and purification method (Gevaert, K., Demol, H., Puype, M., Broekaert, D., De Boeck, S., Houthaeve, T., Vandekerckhove, J., 1997. Electrophoresis 18, 2950-2960) for the analysis of diluted peptide samples by matrix-assisted laser desorption ionization-time-of-flight-mass spectrometry (MALDI-TOF-MS) is compared with conventional MALDI sample preparation methods. In the procedure developed, reverse-phase chromatographic beads are added to diluted peptide solutions and act as a peptide-trapping device. Peptides concentrated on the added beads are subsequently harvested, transferred to the MALDI-target disc and efficiently on target desorbed from the beads in a very small volume of an organic-aqueous mixture containing the aromatic MALDI-matrix components. Using this procedure, we show that it is possible to use the totality of in gel protein digests without negative interference of buffers and chaotropes that may be present in the digestion mixture. This method links MALDI-MS peptide analysis more efficiently to 2-D gel electrophoresis in the concept of proteome analysis. The procedure is illustrated by the identification of a class of proteins, which translocate to the actin cytoskeleton of human platelets upon thrombin stimulation.

Transcriptional profiling of the lectin ArathEULS3 from Arabidopsis thaliana toward abiotic stresses.

The family of EUL-related lectins groups all proteins with an Euonymus lectin (EUL) domain, a protein motif which is highly conserved throughout the plant kingdom and occurs as part of many chimeric proteins with different domain architectures. The S3 type EUL lectin from Arabidopsis thaliana (ArathEULS3) has become the model protein within this EUL family. Based on sequence homology to an ABA/NaCl inducible gene from rice and some publicly available high-throughput micro-array data, it was hypothesized that ArathEULS3 is transcriptionally regulated by osmotic stress responses. Here we present a detailed expression analysis of the ArathEULS3 lectin gene. Under normal growth conditions, ArathEULS3 is stably expressed throughout plant development. After ABA, NaCl and methyl jasmonate (MeJA) treatments transcription is upregulated. Furthermore, in silico promoter and co-expression analyses suggested the A. thaliana Homeobox 7 (ATHB-7) as a candidate transcription factor that may regulate ArathEULS3 expression. Taken together, our data confirm that the ArathEULS3 lectin gene indeed shows a stress-inducible expression pattern. We speculate on a role for ArathEULS3 in the plant stress response.

Quadriceps strength and executive functions in older women.

OBJECTIVE: The aim of this study is to answer the question whether the strength of the knee extensor musculus quadriceps (m. quadriceps), in particular, is related to specific executive functions and whether this relationship is independent of aerobic fitness. The clinical relevance of this question is that the m. quadriceps can still be trained in older people and executive functions are the most vulnerable to processes of aging. DESIGN: In 41 cognitively intact older women, cognitive functioning was assessed by neuropsychological tests; isometric and isotonic quadriceps strength by the Quadrisotester and the 30-sec chair-stand test, respectively; and aerobic fitness by the 6-min walk test. RESULTS: A significant proportion of the total variance of the executive functions, attention/working memory and inhibition, were explained by isometric/isotonic knee extensor strength and aerobic fitness, respectively. Extensor muscle strength, aerobic fitness, or one or more interactions did not explain a significant proportion of the total variance of other cognitive functions. CONCLUSIONS: These data suggest that in older women, quadriceps strength is associated with the executive function, attention/working memory, and that this effect is independent of aerobic fitness, which seems to be associated more strongly with inhibition, another executive function.