Incidental emotions, which are irrelevant to the current decision, play a significant role in the decision‐making process. In this study, to investigate the influence of incidental emotions on ...behavioral, psychological, and electrophysiological responses in the process of decision making, participants were required to perform a monetary gambling task. During the selection stage, an emotional picture, which was chosen from the Chinese Affective Picture System and fell into one of three categories: negative, neutral, and positive, was presented between two alternatives (small/large amount of bet). The pictures were provided to induce incidental emotions. ERPs and self‐rating emotional experiences to outcome feedback were recorded during the task. Behavioral results showed that positive incidental emotions elicited risk preference, but emotional experiences to outcome feedback were not influenced by incidental emotions. The feedback‐related negativity amplitudes were larger in the positive emotion condition than in the negative and neutral emotion conditions for small outcomes (including wins and losses), whereas there was no difference between the three conditions for large outcomes. In addition, the amplitudes of P3 were reduced overall in the negative emotion condition. We suggest that incidental emotions have modulated both the option assessment stage (manifested in behavioral choices) and the outcome evaluation stage (manifested in ERP amplitudes) of decision making unconsciously (indicated by unchanged subjective emotional experiences). The current findings have expanded our understanding of the role of incidental emotion in decision making.
Anxiety-related illnesses are highly prevalent in human society. Being able to identify neurobiological markers signaling high trait anxiety could aid the assessment of individuals with high risk for ...mental illness. Here, we applied connectome-based predictive modeling (CPM) to whole-brain resting-state functional connectivity (rsFC) data to predict the degree of trait anxiety in 76 healthy participants. Using a computational "lesion" approach in CPM, we then examined the weights of the identified main brain areas as well as their connectivity. Results showed that the CPM successfully predicted individual anxiety based on whole-brain rsFC, especially the rsFC between limbic areas and prefrontal cortex. The prediction power of the model significantly decreased from simulated lesions of limbic areas, lesions of the connectivity within limbic areas, and lesions of the connectivity between limbic areas and prefrontal cortex. Importantly, this neural model generalized to an independent large sample (n = 501). These findings highlight important roles of the limbic system and prefrontal cortex in anxiety prediction. Our work provides evidence for the usefulness of connectome-based modeling in predicting individual personality differences and indicates its potential for identifying personality factors at risk for psychopathology.
MicroRNAs (miRNAs) have been reported to be associated with the development of cancers. However, the function of miRNAs in human hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) remains largely undefined. Here we ...found that overexpression of miR‐10a promoted the migration and invasion of QGY‐7703 and HepG2 cells in vitro but suppressed metastasis in vivo. Cell adhesion assays showed that miR‐10a suppressed HCC cell‐matrix adhesion, which could explain the results of the in vivo animal experiments. The Eph tyrosine kinase receptor, EphA4, was identified as the direct and functional target gene of miR‐10a. Knockdown of EphA4 phenocopied the effect of miR‐10a and ectopic expression of EphA4 restored the effect of miR‐10a on migration, invasion, and adhesion in HCC cells. We further demonstrated that miR‐10a and EphA4 regulated the epithelial‐mesenchymal transition process and the β1‐integrin pathway to affect cell invasion and adhesion. Conclusion: Our findings highlight the importance of miR‐10a in regulating the metastatic properties of HCC by directly targeting EphA4 and may provide new insights into the pathogenesis of HCC. (HEPATOLOGY 2013)
Extensive studies have reported significant activation of the cerebellum in reading and reading-related tasks. However, it has remained unclear how the cerebellum contributes to reading and how ...reading-related regions in the cerebrum are related to those in the cerebellum. In this review, by summarizing previous literature, we observe that multiple cerebellar areas are engaged in reading and vary in their contributions to reading. Moreover, the cerebellar reading-related areas are selectively connected with the cerebral areas with the same functional specificity. Abnormalities in the cerebro-cerebellar connection are also associated with reading impairments. We thus propose the cerebro-cerebellar mapping hypothesis, which suggests that the cerebellum might have another reading-related network rather than serving as a neural hub. This network maps to and collaborates with its functionally corresponding network in the cerebrum. This framework heightens the importance of the cerebellum to reading and provides new insights into the relationship between the cerebellum, cerebrum, and reading development.
•We proposed the cerebro-cerebellar mapping hypothesis for word reading.•This framework claimed that the cerebellum has multiple reading-related areas, mapping to those in the cerebrum.•Fluent reading requires the collaboration of the cerebral and cerebellar reading-related areas.•Dysfunction of the cerebro-cerebellar connection was associated with reading impairments.
Reversal learning is a crucial aspect of behavioral flexibility that plays a significant role in environmental adaptation and development. While previous studies have established a link between ...anxiety and impaired reversal learning ability, the underlying mechanisms behind this association remain unclear. This study employed a probabilistic reversal learning task with electroencephalographic recording to investigate these mechanisms. Participants were divided into two groups based on their scores on Spielberger's State-Trait Anxiety Inventory: high trait-anxiety (HTA) and low trait-anxiety (LTA), consisting of 50 individuals in each group. The results showed that the HTA group had poorer reversal learning performance than the LTA group, including a lower tendency to shift to the new optimal option after rule reversals (reversal-shift). The study also examined event-related potentials elicited by reversals and found that although the N1 (related to attention allocation), feedback-related negativity (FRN: related to belief updating), and P3 (related to response inhibition) were all sensitive to the grouping factor, only the FRN elicited by reversal-shift mediated the relationship between anxiety and the number/reaction time of reversal-shift. From these findings, we suggest that abnormalities in belief updating may contribute to the impaired reversal learning performance observed in anxious individuals. In our opinion, this study sheds light on potential targets for interventions aimed at improving behavioral flexibility in anxious individuals.
•Higher anxiety is associated with poorer reversal learning performance.•This study aimed to elucidate the underlying electrophysiological mechanisms.•High anxiety subjects showed reduced neuroelectric response during rule reversals.•Feedback-related negativity mediated the association between anxiety and reversals.
Anopheles sinensis is the main vector of malaria with a wide distribution in China and its adjacent countries. The smoke from burning dried mugwort leaves has been commonly used to repel and kill ...mosquito adults especially in southern Chinese provinces. In this study, the essential oils of mugwort leaves collected from seven provinces in China were extracted by steam distillation and their chemical compositions were analyzed. Among a total of 56-87 chemical constituents confirmed by GC-MS analyses, four compounds, eucalyptol, β-caryophyllene, phytol and caryophyllene oxide, were identified with appearances from all seven distilled essential oils. The effectiveness varied in larvicidal, fumigant and repellent activities against An. sinensis from these seven essential oils with different geographic origins. The essential oil from Hubei province showed the highest larvicidal activity against the 4th instar larvae of An. sinensis, with a median lethal concentration at 40.23 µg/mL. For fumigation toxicity, essential oils from 4 provinces (Gansu, Shandong, Sichuan and Henan) were observed with less than 10 min in knockdown time. The essential oil distilled from Gansu province displayed the highest repellent activity against Anopheles mosquitoes and provided similar level of protection as observed from DEET. Eucalyptol was the most toxic fumigant compound and phytol showed the strongest larvicidal activity among all tested mugwort essential oil constituents.
As an important cognitive bias, the framing effect shows that our decision preferences are sensitive to the verbal description (i.e., frame) of options. This study focuses on the neural underpinnings ...of the social framing effect, which is based on decision-making regarding other people. A novel paradigm was used in which participants made a trade-off between economic benefits and the feelings of others. This decision was described as either a "harm" to, or "not helping," other persons in two conditions (Harm frame vs Help frame). Both human males and females were recruited. Participants behaved more prosocially for Harm frame compared with Help frame, resulting in a significant social framing effect. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging, Experiment 1 showed that the social framing effect was associated with stronger activation in the temporoparietal junction (TPJ), especially its right part. The functional connectivity between the right TPJ (rTPJ) and medial prefrontal cortex predicted the social framing effect on the group level. In Experiment 2, we used transcranial direct current stimulation to modulate the activity of the rTPJ and found that the social framing effect became more prominent under anodal (excitatory) stimulation, while the nonsocial framing effect elicited by the economic gain/loss gambling frame remained unaffected. The rTPJ results might be associated with moral conflicts modulated by the social consequences of an action or different levels of mentalizing with others under different frame conditions, but alternative interpretations are also worth noting. These findings could help elucidate the psychological mechanisms of the social framing effect.
Previous studies have suggested that the framing effect is generated from an interaction between the amygdala and anterior cingulate cortex. This opinion, however, is based on findings from nonsocial framing tasks. Recent research has highlighted the importance of distinguishing between the social and nonsocial framing effects. The current study focuses on the social framing effect and finds out that the temporoparietal junction and its functional connectivity with the medial prefrontal cortex play a significant role. Additionally, modulating the activity of this region leads to changes in social (but not nonsocial) framing effect. Broadly speaking, these findings help understand the difference in neural mechanisms between social and nonsocial decision-making. Meanwhile, they might be illuminating to promote helping behavior in society.
Local binary patterns (LBP) are one of the most important image representations. However, LBPs have not been as successful as other methods in palmprint recognition. Originally, the LBP descriptor ...methods construct feature vectors in the image intensity space, using pixel intensity differences to encode a local representation of the image. Recently, similar feature descriptors have been proposed which operate in the gradient space instead of the image intensity space, such as local directional patterns (LDP) and local directional number patterns (LDN). In this paper, we propose a new feature input space and define an LBP-like descriptor that operates in the local line-geometry space, thus proposing a new image descriptor, local line directional patterns (LLDP). Moreover, the purpose of this work is to show that different implementations of LLDP descriptors perform competitively in palmprint recognition. We evaluate variations to LLDPs, e.g., the modified finite radon transform (MFRAT) and the real part of Gabor filters are exploited to extract robust directional palmprint features. As is well-known, palm lines are the essential features of a palmprint. We are able to show that the proposed LLDP descriptors are suitable for robust palmprint recognition. Finally, we present a thorough performance comparison among different LBP-like and LLDP image descriptors. Based on experimental results, the proposed feature encoding of LLDPs using directional indexing can achieve better recognition performance than that of bit strings in the Gabor-based implementation of LLDPs. We used four databases for performance comparisons: the Hong Kong Polytechnic University Palmprint Database II, the blue band of the Hong Kong Polytechnic University Multispectral Palmprint Database, the Cross-Sensor palmprint database, and the IIT Delhi touchless palmprint database. Overall, LLDP descriptors achieve a performance that is competitive or better than other LBP descriptors.
•We propose LLDP descriptor, which uses the line feature to calculate the code.•We show that line direction index number is better than bit strings for coding.•LLDP achieves the best recognition performance among all LBP-structure descriptors.•LLDP achieves promising recognition performance on four palmprint databases.
Abstract
Objective
The objective of this study is to explore the relationship between family communication, family violence, problematic internet use, anxiety, and depression and validate their ...potential mediating role.
Methods
The study population consisted of Chinese adolescents aged 12 to 18 years, and a cross-sectional survey was conducted in 2022. Structural equation models were constructed using AMOS 25.0 software to examine the factors that influence adolescent anxiety and depression and the mediating effects of problematic internet use and family violence.
Results
The results indicate that family communication was significantly and negatively related to family violence (
β
= -.494,
p
< 0.001), problematic internet use (
β
= -.056,
p
< .05), depression (
β
= -.076,
p
< .01), and anxiety (
β
= -.071,
p
< .05). And the finds also indicate that family violence mediated the relationships between family communication and depression (
β
= -.143, CI: -.198 -.080), and between family communication and anxiety (
β
= -.141; CI: -.198 -.074). Chain indirect effects between family communication and depression (
β
= -.051; CI: -.081 -.030) or anxiety (
β
= -.046; CI: -.080 -.043) via family violence and then through problematic internet use were also found in the present study.
Conclusions
In conclusion, positive family communication is crucial in reducing anxiety and depression in adolescents. Moreover, problematic internet use and family violence mediate the effects of positive family communication on anxiety and depression. Therefore, improving family communication and promoting interventions aimed at reducing family violence and problematic internet use can help reduce anxiety and depression in adolescents, thus promoting their healthy development.
Flavor is one of the most important factors in attracting consumers and maximizing food quality, and the Maillard reaction (MR) is highly-involved in flavor formation. However, Maillard reaction ...products have a big drawback in their relatively low stability in thermal treatment and storage. Amadori rearrangement products (ARPs), MR intermediates, can alternatively act as potential flavor additives for their better stability and fresh flavor formation ability. This review aims to elucidate key aspects of ARPs’ future application as flavorings. The development of current analytical technologies enables the precise characterization of ARPs, while advanced preparation methods such as synthesis, separation and drying processes can increase the yield of ARPs to up to 95%. The stability of ARPs is influenced by their chemical nature, pH value, temperature, water activity and food matrix. ARPs are associated with umami and kokumi taste enhancing effects, and the flavor formation is related to amino acids/peptides of the ARPs. Peptide-ARPs can generate peptide-specific flavors, such as: 1,6-dimethy-2(1H)-pyrazinone, 1,5-dimethy-2(1H)-pyrazinone, and 1,5,6-trimethy-2(1H)-pyrazinone. However, further research on systematic stability and toxicology are needed.
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