Functional organization of social perception in the human brain

Humans can readily perceive a multitude of features from social interactions, but the phenomenological and neural basis of social perception has yet to be solved. Short film clips with rich social content were shown to 97 healthy participants while their haemodynamic brain activity was measured with fMRI. The stimulus clips were annotated for 112 social features yielding the initial stimulus model. Cluster analysis revealed that 13 dimensions were sufficient for describing the social perceptual space. Univariate GLM using these dimensions as predictors was used to map regional neural response profiles to different social features. Multivariate pattern analysis was then utilized to establish the regional specificity of the responses. The results revealed a posterior-anterior gradient in the processing of social information in the brain. Occipital and temporal regions responded to most social dimensions and the classifier revealed that these responses were dimension specific; in contrast Heschl gyri and parietal areas were also broadly tuned to different social signals yet the responses were domain-general and did not differentiate between dimensions. Altogether these results highlight the distributed nature of social processing in the brain as well as the specific contributions of feature-specific versus domain-general social perceptual processes.

Somatic and Abdominal Acupuncture for Pain Treatment in Adolescent Complex Regional Pain Syndrome (CRPS) of the Upper Limb: A Case Report

Complex regional pain syndrome (CRPS) is still poorly understood. It is a pain disorder in which pain is disproportionate to the initial stimulus. There is no specific therapy for CRPS, but it can be managed by a combination of treatments. We report a 13-year-old girl with CRPS of the upper limb treated with somatic and abdominal acupuncture. She described a severe, pulsating pain in the left wrist and hand, with hypersensitivity, allodynia, a marked reduction in strength, and swelling and sweating at the level of the fingers. Pain began three months previously, after a trauma to the left wrist. The diagnostic tests performed were negative. At the first visit we recommended oral tramadol. During the first two sessions we used somatic acupuncture. At the third session, the girl reported suffering intolerable pain in the affected limb during the previous sessions, so we decided to use abdominal acupuncture. After 8 sessions of abdominal acupuncture the pain completely disappeared. Acupuncture could be a potential alternative when conservative therapy with physical and medical treatment fails, but more often parents and adolescents prefer this therapy since other comorbidities are often present in pediatric populations and abdominal acupuncture could be a valuable alternative aid.

A persistent behavioral state enables sustained predation of humans by mosquitoes

Predatory animals first detect, then pursue, and ultimately capture prey. Sensory cues, including scent emitted by prey, are detected by the predator and used to guide pursuit. Because the pursuit phase can last for extended periods of time, it is critical for predators to persist in the chase even when prey is difficult to detect in a noisy sensory land-scape. It is equally important for predators to abandon pursuit if enough time has elapsed that prey capture is unlikely to occur. We studied prey detection and sustained pursuit in the mosquito Aedes aegypti, a micropredator of humans. These animals first detect hu-mans through sensory cues that are emitted at a distance such as carbon dioxide in breath and odor from skin. As the mosquito approaches a human, additional cues such as body heat and visual contrast signal the promise of a blood meal, which females need to produce eggs. To study how initial prey detection influences the duration of pursuit, we developed optogenetic tools to induce a brief fictive sensation of carbon dioxide and used machine learning-based classification of behavior to investigate how mosquitoes respond to subsequent human cues. We found that a 5-second optogenetic pulse of fictive carbon dioxide induced a persistent behavioral state in female mosquitoes that lasted for more than 10 minutes. This state is highly specific to females searching for a blood meal and was not induced in recently blood-fed females or in males, who do not feed on blood. In males that lack the gene fruitless, which controls persistent social behaviors in other insects, fictive carbon dioxide induced a long-lasting behavior response resembling the predatory state of females. Finally, we show that the persistent state triggered by detection of fictive carbon dioxide enabled females to engorge on a blood meal mimic offered up to 14 minutes after the initial stimulus. Our results demonstrate that a persistent internal state allows female mosquitoes to integrate multiple human sensory cues over long timescales, an ability that is key to their success as an apex micropredator of humans

EXPRESS: Estimating the Effects of Trait Knowledge on Social Perception

Research in social cognition has predominantly investigated perceptual and inferential processes separately, however real-world social interactions usually involve integration between person inferences (e.g., generous, selfish) and the perception of physical appearance (e.g., thin, tall). Therefore, in the current work, we investigated the integration of different person-relevant signals, by estimating the extent to which bias in one social information processing system influences another. Following an initial stimulus-validation experiment (Experiment 1, N=55), two further pre-registered experiments (Experiments 2, N=55 & 3; N=123) employed a priming paradigm to measure the effects of extraversion-diagnostic information on subsequent health and body-size judgements of a target body. The results were consistent across both priming experiments and supported our predictions: compared to trait-neutral control statements, extraversion-diagnostic statements increased judgements of health and decreased those of body size. As such, we show that trait-based knowledge does not only influence mappings towards similar types of person judgments, such as health judgments. Rather, even a brief re-configuration of trait-space alters mappings towards non-trait judgments, which are based on body size and shape. The results complement prior neuroimaging findings that showed functional interactions between the body-selective brain regions in the ventral visual stream and the theory of mind network when forming impressions of others. Therefore, we provide a functional signature of how distinct information processing units exchange signals and integrate information in order to form impressions. Overall, the current study underscores the value of behavioural work in complementing neuroscience when investigating the role and properties of functional integration during impression formation. Additionally, it stresses the potential limitations of an over-reliance on studying separate systems in isolation.

NKT and NKT-like Cells in Autoimmune Neuroinflammatory Diseases—Multiple Sclerosis, Myasthenia Gravis and Guillain-Barre Syndrome

NKT cells comprise three subsets—type I (invariant, iNKT), type II, and NKT-like cells, of which iNKT cells are the most studied subset. They are capable of rapid cytokine production after the initial stimulus, thus they may be important for polarisation of Th cells. Due to this, they may be an important cell subset in autoimmune diseases. In the current review, we are summarising results of NKT-oriented studies in major neurological autoimmune diseases—multiple sclerosis, myasthenia gravis, and Guillain-Barre syndrome and their corresponding animal models.

Transcranial theta-burst stimulation of primary sensory cortex attenuates somatosensory threat memory in humans

Sensory cortices are required for learning to discriminate complex stimuli that predict threat from those that predict safety in rodents. Yet, sensory cortices may not be needed to learn threat associations to simple stimuli. It is unknown whether these findings apply in humans. Here, we investigated the role of primary sensory cortex in discriminative threat conditioning with simple and complex somatosensory conditioned stimuli (CS) in healthy humans. Immediately before conditioning, participants received continuous theta-burst transcranial magnetic stimulation (cTBS) to primary somatosensory cortex either in the CS-contralateral or CS-ipsilateral hemisphere. After overnight consolidation, threat memory was attenuated in the contralateral compared to the ipsilateral group, as indicated by reduced startle eye-blink potentiation. There was no evidence for a difference between simple and complex stimuli, or that CS identification or conditioning was affected, suggesting a stronger effect of cTBS on consolidation than on initial stimulus processing. We propose that non-invasive stimulation of sensory cortex may provide a new avenue for interfering with threat memories in humans.

JASMONIC ACID PRIMING OF POTATO USES HYPERSENSITIVE RESPONSE-DEPENDENT DEFENSE AND DELAYS NECROTROPHIC PHASE CHANGE AGAINST PHYTOPHTHORA INFESTANS

One of the most important diseases affecting potato is late blight, caused by the oomycete Phtytophthora infestans. The use of jasmonic acid has been reported to reduce the progression of the disease in potato, but the defense mechanisms involved in this response are unknown. In this study we described the effect of jasmonic acid as a priming agent over time in the defense response of potato against the invasion of P. infestans. We observed that the initial stimulus generated by the exogenous application of jasmonic acid had an effect on the stomatal conductance of the treated tissue and activated StMYC2 expression. Results reveal a priming effect in plants inoculated 11 days after treatment with jasmonic acid, evidenced by an increased transcriptional induction of defense-associated genes, decrease in the number of necrotic lesions and an evident reduction of lesion area (72.23%). Furthermore, in this study, we show that the tested concentration of jasmonic acid does not have an adverse effect at the physiological level in plants, since variation in stomatal conductance was transient, no change in chlorophyll a fluorescence and no early senescence in leaves was observed.

Effects of Noise and Serial Position on Free Recall of Spoken Words and Pupil Dilation during Encoding in Normal-Hearing Adults

This preliminary study assessed the effects of noise and stimulus presentation order on recall of spoken words and recorded pupil sizes while normal-hearing listeners were trying to encode a series of words for a subsequent recall task. In three listening conditions (stationary noise in Experiment 1; quiet versus four-talker babble in Experiment 2), participants were assigned to remember as many words as possible to recall them in any order after each list of seven sentences. In the two noise conditions, lists of sentences fixed at 65 dB SPL were presented at an easily audible level via a loudspeaker. Reading span (RS) scores were used as a grouping variable, based on a median split. The primacy effect was present apart from the noise interference, and the high-RS group significantly outperformed the low-RS group at free recall measured in the quiet and four-talker babble noise conditions. RS scores were positively correlated with free-recall scores. In both quiet and four-talker babble noise conditions, sentence baselines after correction to the initial stimulus baseline increased significantly with increasing memory load. Larger sentence baselines but smaller peak pupil dilations seemed to be associated with noise interruption. The analysis method of pupil dilation used in this study is likely to provide a more thorough understanding of how listeners respond to a later recall task in comparison with previously used methods. Further studies are needed to confirm the applicability of our method in people with impaired hearing using multiple repetitions to estimate the allocation of relevant cognitive resources.

ONLINE COMMENT AND MESSAGE ON THE INTERNET FORUM: DIFFERENTIATION PARAMETERS OF GENRES

The article compares the commentary genre with the genre of forum in order to identify similarities and differences between them. An analysis of the genre system of Internet discourse and a description of the various criteria for distinguishing genres are made to do genre distinction of discursive forms. It includes situational and style-forming signs; structural and compositional criteria; origin; inclusion in a particular discourse; time and location of communicants; the form of speech and the factor of direct participation of communicants; language features; goals of the communication. As a result it was determined that the similarity of genres appears in terms of secondary characteristics towards the initial stimulus, in the polylogical form of communication, in the addressee and addresser characteristics and the presence of observers. The differences are revealed in the initial stimulus, the communicative purpose of the messages, hierarchy and status and in the type of addressing.