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- D-1221-2009 (1)
What reaction stops revenge taking? Four experiments (total N = 191) examined this question where the victim of an interpersonal transgression could observe the offender's reaction (anger, sadness, pain, or calm) to a retributive noise punishment. We compared the punishment intensity selected by the participant before and after seeing the offender's reaction. Seeing the opponent in pain reduced subsequent punishment most strongly, while displays of sadness and verbal indications of suffering had no appeasing effect. Expression of anger about a retributive punishment did not increase revenge seeking relative to a calm reaction, even when the anger response was disambiguated as being angry with the punisher. It is concluded that the expression of pain is the most effective emotional display for the reduction of retaliatory aggression. The findings are discussed in light of recent research on reactive aggression and retributive justice.
The present approach exploits the biomechanical connection between articulation and ingestion-related mouth movements to introduce a novel psychological principle of brand name design. We constructed brand names for diverse products with consonantal stricture spots either from the front to the rear of the mouth, thus inwards (e.g., BODIKA), or from the rear to the front, thus outwards (e.g., KODIBA). These muscle dynamics resemble the oral kinematics during either ingestion (inwards), which feels positive, or expectoration (outwards), which feels negative. In 7 experiments (total N = 1261), participants liked products with inward names more than products with outward names (Experiment 1), reported higher purchase intentions (Experiment 2), and higher willingness-to-pay (Experiments 3a-3c, 4, 5), with the price gain amounting to 4-13% of the average estimated product value. These effects occurred across English and German language, under silent reading, for both edible and non-edible products, and even in the presence of a much stronger price determinant, namely fair-trade production (Experiment 5).
Tactile stimulation is less frequently used than visual for brain-computer interface (BCI) control, partly because of limitations in speed and accuracy. Non-visual BCI paradigms, however, may be required for patients who struggle with vision dependent BCIs because of a loss of gaze control. With the present study, we attempted to replicate earlier results by Herweg et al. (2016), with several minor adjustments and a focus on training effects and usability. We invited 16 healthy participants and trained them with a 4-class tactile P300-based BCI in five sessions. Their main task was to navigate a virtual wheelchair through a 3D apartment using the BCI. We found significant training effects on information transfer rate (ITR), which increased from a mean of 3.10–9.50 bits/min. Further, both online and offline accuracies significantly increased with training from 65% to 86% and 70% to 95%, respectively. We found only a descriptive increase of P300 amplitudes at Fz and Cz with training. Furthermore, we report subjective data from questionnaires, which indicated a relatively high workload and moderate to high satisfaction. Although our participants have not achieved the same high performance as in the Herweg et al. (2016) study, we provide evidence for training effects on performance with a tactile BCI and confirm the feasibility of the paradigm.
Introduction: In this study, we investigated the impact of age on mate selection preferences in males and females, and explored how the formation and duration of committed relationships depend on the sex of the person making the selection.
Methods: To this end, we utilized data from the television dating shows The Bachelor and The Bachelorette. In these programs, either a single man (“bachelor”) or a woman (“bachelorette”) has the opportunity to select a potential long-term partner from a pool of candidates. Our analysis encompassed a total of n = 169 seasons from 23 different countries, beginning with the first airing in 2002.
Results: We found that the likelihood of the final couple continuing their relationship beyond the broadcast was higher in The Bachelorette than in The Bachelor, although the duration of these relationships was not significantly influenced by the type of show. On average, women were younger, both when selecting their partner and when being chosen. However, men exhibited a greater preference for larger age differences than women. Furthermore, the age of the chosen male partners significantly increased with the age of the “bachelorettes,” whereas “bachelors” consistently favored women around 25.5 years old, regardless of their own age.
Discussion: We discuss these findings within the context of parental investment theory and sexual strategies theory.
When More Is Better – Consumption Priming Decreases Responders’ Rejections in the Ultimatum Game
(2017)
During the past decades, economic theories of rational choice have been exposed to outcomes that were severe challenges to their claim of universal validity. For example, traditional theories cannot account for refusals to cooperate if cooperation would result in higher payoffs. A prominent illustration are responders’ rejections of positive but unequal payoffs in the Ultimatum Game. To accommodate this anomaly in a rational framework one needs to assume both a preference for higher payoffs and a preference for equal payoffs. The current set of studies shows that the relative weight of these preference components depends on external conditions and that consumption priming may decrease responders’ rejections of unequal payoffs. Specifically, we demonstrate that increasing the accessibility of consumption-related information accentuates the preference for higher payoffs. Furthermore, consumption priming increased responders’ reaction times for unequal payoffs which suggests an increased conflict between both preference components. While these results may also be integrated into existing social preference models, we try to identify some basic psychological processes underlying economic decision making. Going beyond the Ultimatum Game, we propose that a distinction between comparative and deductive evaluations may provide a more general framework to account for various anomalies in behavioral economics.
Which home for coelacanth?
(1993)
Over the last 20 years, there has been increasing focus on the development of novel stem cell based therapies for the treatment of disorders and diseases affecting the enteric nervous system (ENS) of the gastrointestinal tract (so-called enteric neuropathies). Here, the idea is that ENS progenitor/stem cells could be transplanted into the gut wall to replace the damaged or absent neurons and glia of the ENS. This White Paper sets out experts' views on the commonly used methods and approaches to identify, isolate, purify, expand and optimize ENS stem cells, transplant them into the bowel, and assess transplant success, including restoration of gut function. We also highlight obstacles that must be overcome in order to progress from successful preclinical studies in animal models to ENS stem cell therapies in the clinic.
Brown adipose tissue (BAT) is an attractive therapeutic target to combat diabetes and obesity due to its ability to increase glucose expenditure. In a genetic rat model (ZDF fa/fa) of type-2 diabetes and obesity, we aimed to investigate glucose utilization of BAT by \(^{18}\)F-FDG PET imaging. Male Zucker diabetic fatty (ZDF) and Male Zucker lean (ZL) control rats were studied at 13 weeks. Three weeks prior to imaging, ZDF rats were randomized into a no-restriction (ZDF-ND) and a mild calorie restriction (ZDF-CR) group. Dynamic \(^{18}\)F-FDG PET using a dedicated small animal PET system was performed under hyperinsulinemic-euglycemic clamp. \(^{18}\)F-FDG PET identified intense inter-scapular BAT glucose uptake in all ZL control rats, while no focally increased \(^{18}\)F-FDG uptake was detected in all ZDF-ND rats. Mild but significant improved BAT tracer uptake was identified after calorie restriction in diabetic rats (ZDF-CR). The weight of BAT tissue and fat deposits were significantly increased in ZDF-CR and ZDF-ND rats as compared to ZL controls, while UCP-1 and mitochondrial concentrations were significantly decreased. Whitening and severely impaired insulin-stimulated glucose uptake in BAT was confirmed in a rat model of type-2 diabetes. Additionally, calorie restriction partially restored the impaired BAT glucose uptake.
Introduction: This paper addresses the need for reliable user identification in Extended Reality (XR), focusing on the scarcity of public datasets in this area.
Methods: We present a new dataset collected from 71 users who played the game “Half-Life: Alyx” on an HTC Vive Pro for 45 min across two separate sessions. The dataset includes motion and eye-tracking data, along with physiological data from a subset of 31 users. Benchmark performance is established using two state-of-the-art deep learning architectures, Convolutional Neural Networks (CNN) and Gated Recurrent Units (GRU).
Results: The best model achieved a mean accuracy of 95% for user identification within 2 min when trained on the first session and tested on the second.
Discussion: The dataset is freely available and serves as a resource for future research in XR user identification, thereby addressing a significant gap in the field. Its release aims to facilitate advancements in user identification methods and promote reproducibility in XR research.
Background:
Sit-to-stand height-adjustable desks (HAD) may promote workplace standing, as long as workers use them on a regular basis. The aim of this study was to investigate (i) how common HAD in German desk-based workers are, and how frequently HADs are used, (ii) to identify sociodemographic, health-related, and psycho-social variables of workday sitting including having a HAD, and (iii) to analyse sociodemographic, health-related, and psycho-social variables of users and non-users of HADs.
Methods:
A cross-sectional sample of 680 participants (51.9% men; 41.0 ± 13.1 years) in a desk-based occupation was interviewed by telephone about their occupational sitting and standing proportions, having and usage of a HAD, and answered questions concerning psycho-social variables of occupational sitting. The proportion of workday sitting was calculated for participants having an HAD (n = 108) and not-having an HAD (n = 573), as well as for regular users of HAD (n = 54), and irregular/non-users of HAD (n = 54). Linear regressions were conducted to calculate associations between socio-demographic, health-related, psychosocial variables and having/not having an HAD, and the proportion of workday sitting. Logistic regressions were executed to examine the association of mentioned variables and participants’ usage of HADs.
Results:
Sixteen percent report that they have an HAD, and 50% of these report regular use of HAD. Having an HAD is not a correlate of the proportion of workday sitting. Further analysis restricted to participants having available a HAD highlights that only the ‘perceived advantages of sitting less’ was significantly associated with HAD use in the fully adjusted model (OR 1.75 [1.09; 2.81], p < 0.05).
Conclusions:
The present findings indicate that accompanying behavioral action while providing an HAD is promising to increase the regular usage of HAD. Hence, future research needs to address the specificity of behavioral actions in order to enhance regular HAD use, and needs to give more fundamental insights into these associations.
The incidence of malignant melanoma continues to increase each year with poor prognosis for survival in many relapse cases. To reverse this trend, whole body response measures are needed to discover collaborative paths to primary and secondary malignancy. Several species of fish provide excellent melanoma models because fish and human melanocytes both appear in the epidermis, and fish and human pigment cell tumors share conserved gene expression signatures. For the first time, we have examined the whole body transcriptome response to invasive melanoma as a prelude to using transcriptome profiling to screen for drugs in a medaka (Oryzias latipes) model. We generated RNA-seq data from whole body RNA isolates for controls and melanoma fish. After testing for differential expression, 396 genes had significantly different expression (adjusted p-value <0.02) in the whole body transcriptome between melanoma and control fish; 379 of these genes were matched to human orthologs with 233 having annotated human gene symbols and 14 matched genes that contain putative deleterious variants in human melanoma at varying levels of recurrence. A detailed canonical pathway evaluation for significant enrichment showed the top scoring pathway to be antigen presentation but also included the expected melanocyte development and pigmentation signaling pathway. Results revealed a profound down-regulation of genes involved in the immune response, especially the innate immune system. We hypothesize that the developing melanoma actively suppresses the immune system responses of the body in reacting to the invasive malignancy, and that this mal-adaptive response contributes to disease progression, a result that suggests our whole-body transcriptomic approach merits further use. In these findings, we also observed novel genes not yet identified in human melanoma expression studies and uncovered known and new candidate drug targets for further testing in this malignant melanoma medaka model.
Whole Genome Duplications Shaped the Receptor Tyrosine Kinase Repertoire of Jawed Vertebrates
(2016)
The receptor tyrosine kinase (RTK) gene family, involved primarily in cell growth and differentiation, comprises proteins with a common enzymatic tyrosine kinase intracellular domain adjacent to a transmembrane region. The amino-terminal portion of RTKs is extracellular and made of different domains, the combination of which characterizes each of the 20 RTK subfamilies among mammals. We analyzed a total of 7,376 RTK sequences among 143 vertebrate species to provide here the first comprehensive census of the jawed vertebrate repertoire. We ascertained the 58 genes previously described in the human and mouse genomes and established their phylogenetic relationships. We also identified five additional RTKs amounting to a total of 63 genes in jawed vertebrates. We found that the vertebrate RTK gene family has been shaped by the two successive rounds of whole genome duplications (WGD) called 1R and 2R (1R/2R) that occurred at the base of the vertebrates. In addition, the Vegfr and Ephrin receptor subfamilies were expanded by single gene duplications. In teleost fish, 23 additional RTK genes have been retained after another expansion through the fish-specific third round (3R) of WGD. Several lineage-specific gene losses were observed. For instance, birds have lost three RTKs, and different genes are missing in several fish sublineages. The RTK gene family presents an unusual high gene retention rate from the vertebrate WGDs (58.75% after 1R/2R, 64.4% after 3R), resulting in an expansion that might be correlated with the evolution of complexity of vertebrate cellular communication and intracellular signaling.
Most RNAs within polarized cells such as neurons are sorted subcellularly in a coordinated manner. Despite advances in the development of methods for profiling polyadenylated RNAs from small amounts of input RNA, techniques for profiling coding and non-coding RNAs simultaneously are not well established. Here, we optimized a transcriptome profiling method based on double-random priming and applied it to serially diluted total RNA down to 10 pg. Read counts of expressed genes were robustly correlated between replicates, indicating that the method is both reproducible and scalable. Our transcriptome profiling method detected both coding and long non-coding RNAs sized >300 bases. Compared to total RNAseq using a conventional approach our protocol detected 70% more genes due to reduced capture of ribosomal RNAs. We used our method to analyze the RNA composition of compartmentalized motoneurons. The somatodendritic compartment was enriched for transcripts with post-synaptic functions as well as for certain nuclear non-coding RNAs such as 7SK. In axons, transcripts related to translation were enriched including the cytoplasmic non-coding RNA 7SL. Our profiling method can be applied to a wide range of investigations including perturbations of subcellular transcriptomes in neurodegenerative diseases and investigations of microdissected tissue samples such as anatomically defined fiber tracts.
Whole-Body [\(^{18}\)F]FDG PET/CT Can Alter Diagnosis in Patients with Suspected Rheumatic Disease
(2021)
The 2-deoxy-d-[\(^{18}\)F]fluoro-D-glucose (FDG) positron emission tomography/computed tomography (PET/CT) is widely utilized to assess the vascular and articular inflammatory burden of patients with a suspected diagnosis of rheumatic disease. We aimed to elucidate the impact of [\(^{18}\)F]FDG PET/CT on change in initially suspected diagnosis in patients at the time of the scan. Thirty-four patients, who had undergone [\(^{18}\)F]FDG PET/CT, were enrolled and the initially suspected diagnosis prior to [18F]FDG PET/CT was compared to the final diagnosis. In addition, a semi-quantitative analysis including vessel wall-to-liver (VLR) and joint-to-liver (JLR) ratios was also conducted. Prior to [\(^{18}\)F]FDG PET/CT, 22/34 (64.7%) of patients did not have an established diagnosis, whereas in 7/34 (20.6%), polymyalgia rheumatica (PMR) was suspected, and in 5/34 (14.7%), giant cell arteritis (GCA) was suspected by the referring rheumatologists. After [\(^{18}\)F]FDG PET/CT, the diagnosis was GCA in 19/34 (55.9%), combined GCA and PMR (GCA + PMR) in 9/34 (26.5%) and PMR in the remaining 6/34 (17.6%). As such, [\(^{18}\)F]FDG PET/CT altered suspected diagnosis in 28/34 (82.4%), including in all unclear cases. VLR of patients whose final diagnosis was GCA tended to be significantly higher when compared to VLR in PMR (GCA, 1.01 ± 0.08 (95%CI, 0.95–1.1) vs. PMR, 0.92 ± 0.1 (95%CI, 0.85–0.99), p = 0.07), but not when compared to PMR + GCA (1.04 ± 0.14 (95%CI, 0.95–1.13), p = 1). JLR of individuals finally diagnosed with PMR (0.94 ± 0.16, (95%CI, 0.83–1.06)), however, was significantly increased relative to JLR in GCA (0.58 ± 0.04 (95%CI, 0.55–0.61)) and GCA + PMR (0.64 ± 0.09 (95%CI, 0.57–0.71); p < 0.0001, respectively). In individuals with a suspected diagnosis of rheumatic disease, an inflammatory-directed [\(^{18}\)F]FDG PET/CT can alter diagnosis in the majority of the cases, particularly in subjects who were referred because of diagnostic uncertainty. Semi-quantitative assessment may be helpful in establishing a final diagnosis of PMR, supporting the notion that a quantitative whole-body read-out may be useful in unclear cases.
Why are you looking like that? How the context influences evaluation and processing of human faces
(2013)
Perception and evaluation of facial expressions are known to be heavily modulated by emotional features of contextual information. Such contextual effects, however, might also be driven by non-emotional aspects of contextual information, an interaction of emotional and non-emotional factors, and by the observers’ inherent traits. Therefore, we sought to assess whether contextual information about self-reference in addition to information about valence influences the evaluation and neural processing of neutral faces. Furthermore, we investigated whether social anxiety moderates these effects. In the present functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study, participants viewed neutral facial expressions preceded by a contextual sentence conveying either positive or negative evaluations about the participant or about somebody else. Contextual influences were reflected in rating and fMRI measures, with strong effects of self-reference on brain activity in the medial prefrontal cortex and right fusiform gyrus. Additionally, social anxiety strongly affected the response to faces conveying negative, self-related evaluations as revealed by the participants’ rating patterns and brain activity in cortical midline structures and regions of interest in the left and right middle frontal gyrus. These results suggest that face perception and processing are highly individual processes influenced by emotional and non-emotional aspects of contextual information and further modulated by individual personality traits.
Purpose
This study investigates the redislocation rate and functional outcome at a minimum follow-up of five years after medial patellofemoral ligament (MPFL) reconstruction with soft tissue patellar fixation for patella instability.
Methods
Patients were retrospectively identified and knees were evaluated for trochlea dysplasia according to Dejour, for presence of patella alta and for presence of cartilage lesion at surgery. At a minimum follow-up of five years, information about an incident of redislocation was obtained. Kujala, Lysholm, and Tegner questionnaires as well as range of motion were used to measure functional outcome.
Results
Eighty-nine knees were included. Follow-up rate for redislocation was 79.8% and for functional outcome 58.4%. After a mean follow-up of 5.8 years, the redislocation rate was 5.6%. There was significant improvement of the Kujala score (68.8 to 88.2, p = 0.000) and of the Lysholm score (71.3 to 88.4, p = 0.000). Range of motion at follow-up was 149.0° (115–165). 77.5% of the knees had patella alta and 52.9% trochlear dysplasia types B, C, or D. Patellar cartilage legions were present in 54.2%. Redislocations occurred in knees with trochlear dysplasia type C in combination with patella alta.
Conclusion
MPFL reconstruction with soft tissue patellar fixation leads to significant improvement of knee function and low midterm redislocation rate. Patients with high-grade trochlear dysplasia should be considered for additional osseous correction.
Wetlands in West Africa are among the most vulnerable ecosystems to climate change. West African wetlands are often freshwater transfer mechanisms from wetter climate regions to dryer areas, providing an array of ecosystem services and functions. Often wetland-specific data in Africa is only available on a per country basis or as point data. Since wetlands are challenging to map, their accuracies are not well considered in global land cover products. In this paper we describe a methodology to map wetlands using well-corrected 250-meter MODIS time-series data for the year 2002 and over a 360,000 km2 large study area in western Burkina Faso and southern Mali (West Africa). A MODIS-based spectral index table is used to map basic wetland morphology classes. The index uses the wet season near infrared (NIR) metrics as a surrogate for flooding, as a function of the dry season chlorophyll activity metrics (as NDVI). Topographic features such as sinks and streamline areas were used to mask areas where wetlands can potentially occur, and minimize spectral confusion. 30-m Landsat trajectories from the same year, over two reference sites, were used for accuracy assessment, which considered the area-proportion of each class mapped in Landsat for every MODIS cell. We were able to map a total of five wetland categories. Aerial extend of all mapped wetlands (class “Wetland”) is 9,350 km2, corresponding to 4.3% of the total study area size. The classes “No wetland”/“Wetland” could be separated with very high certainty; the overall agreement (KHAT) was 84.2% (0.67) and 97.9% (0.59) for the two reference sites, respectively. The methodology described herein can be employed to render wide area base line information on wetland distributions in semi-arid West Africa, as a data-scarce region. The results can provide (spatially) interoperable information feeds for inter-zonal as well as local scale water assessments.
Background
Herpesviruses can infect a wide range of animal species. Herpes simplex virus 1 (HSV-1) is one of the eight herpesviruses that can infect humans and is prevalent worldwide. Herpesviruses have evolved multiple ways to adapt the infected cells to their needs, but knowledge about these transcriptional and post-transcriptional modifications is sparse.
Results
Here, we show that HSV-1 induces the expression of about 1000 antisense transcripts from the human host cell genome. A subset of these is also activated by the closely related varicella zoster virus. Antisense transcripts originate either at gene promoters or within the gene body, and they show different susceptibility to the inhibition of early and immediate early viral gene expression. Overexpression of the major viral transcription factor ICP4 is sufficient to turn on a subset of antisense transcripts. Histone marks around transcription start sites of HSV-1-induced and constitutively transcribed antisense transcripts are highly similar, indicating that the genetic loci are already poised to transcribe these novel RNAs. Furthermore, an antisense transcript overlapping with the BBC3 gene (also known as PUMA) transcriptionally silences this potent inducer of apoptosis in cis.
Conclusions
We show for the first time that a virus induces widespread antisense transcription of the host cell genome. We provide evidence that HSV-1 uses this to downregulate a strong inducer of apoptosis. Our findings open new perspectives on global and specific alterations of host cell transcription by viruses.