Olfactory sensory preconditioning in Drosophila: role of memory forgetting in gating S1/S2 associations

Learning and memory storage is a complex process that has proven challenging to tackle. It is likely that, in real nature, the instructive value of reinforcing experiences is acquired rather than innate. The association between seemingly neutral stimuli increases the gamut of possibilities to create meaningful associations and increases the predictive power of moment-by-moment experiences. Here we report physiological and behavioral evidence of olfactory unimodal sensory preconditioning in fruit flies. We show that the presentation of a pair of odors (S1 and S2) before one of them (S1) is associated with electric shocks elicits a conditional response not only to the trained odor (S1) but to the odor previously paired with it (S2). This occurs even if the S2 odor was never presented in contiguity with the aversive stimulus. In addition, we show that inhibition of the small G protein and known forgetting regulator Rac1 facilitates the association between S1/S2 odors. These results indicate that flies can infer value to non-paired odor based on the previous associative structure between odors, and inhibition of Rac1 lengthens the time of olfactory sensory buffer, allowing linking of neutral odors presented in sequence.

Does the cowl make the monk? The effect of military and Red Cross uniforms on empathy for pain, sense of agency and moral behaviors

The present study investigated to what extent the clothes we wear influence prosocial behaviors and two related neuro-cognitive processes, namely the sense of agency and empathy for pain. We tested forty participants wearing civilian, military and Red Cross uniforms across three consecutive days. Participants were tested by pairs and were assigned either to the role of the agent or to the role of the ‘victim’. Agents could deliver real electric shocks to the ‘victim’ in exchange for +€0.05, either following their own decision or following the experimenter’s instructions. Our results indicated that wearing a Red Cross uniform increased the amplitude of the neural response to pain when participants witnessed shocks in comparison with wearing civilian or military clothing. Results also revealed that the sense of agency increased when participants wore a military uniform compared to wearing their own civilian clothing in the Free condition. Finally, participants gave less shocks when wearing the Red Cross uniform compared to wearing their civilian clothing. This study highlights the effect of wearing symbolic uniforms on the sense of agency, on the neural empathic response and on prosocial behavior, thus broadening our knowledge on the impact of ‘enclothed cognition’ on cognitive and psychological processes.

Do Androids Dream of Electric Shocks? Utilitarian Machine Ethics

<p>Consider Lt. Commander Data from Star Trek: The Next Generation, the droid C3PO from Star Wars, or the Replicants that appear in Bladerunner: They can use language (or many languages), they are rational, they form relationships, they use language that suggests that they have a concept of self, and even language that suggests that they have “feelings” or emotional experience. In the films and TV shows that they appear, they are depicted as having frequent social interaction with human beings; but would we have any moral obligations to such a being if they really existed? What would we be permitted to do or not to do to them? On the one hand, a robot like Data has many of the attributes that we currently associate with a person. On the other hand, he has many of the attributes of the machines that we currently use as tools. He (and other science-fiction machines like him) closely resembles one of the things we value the most (a person), and at the same time, one of the things we value the least (an artefact), leading to an apparent ethical paradox. What is its solution?</p>

Do Androids Dream of Electric Shocks? Utilitarian Machine Ethics

<p>Consider Lt. Commander Data from Star Trek: The Next Generation, the droid C3PO from Star Wars, or the Replicants that appear in Bladerunner: They can use language (or many languages), they are rational, they form relationships, they use language that suggests that they have a concept of self, and even language that suggests that they have “feelings” or emotional experience. In the films and TV shows that they appear, they are depicted as having frequent social interaction with human beings; but would we have any moral obligations to such a being if they really existed? What would we be permitted to do or not to do to them? On the one hand, a robot like Data has many of the attributes that we currently associate with a person. On the other hand, he has many of the attributes of the machines that we currently use as tools. He (and other science-fiction machines like him) closely resembles one of the things we value the most (a person), and at the same time, one of the things we value the least (an artefact), leading to an apparent ethical paradox. What is its solution?</p>

Stress increases impulsive punishment avoidance in unmedicated mood disorders

In an intriguing study designed to test whether and how stress affects learning and decision making in anxious individuals, Aylward et al. (2019)1 used a restless four-armed bandit task, where threat of electric shocks was used to induce stress. They hypothesized that anxious individuals would learn faster from punishments under stress, and as a result, exhibit choices that are more affected by those punishments. Unfortunately, these hypotheses were not confirmed.Here, we re-analyzed the original dataset using behavioral models that incorporate different mechanisms that could account for punishment-related behavioral biases. We found evidence that support the original hypotheses, namely increased punishment-avoidance for anxious individuals during stress. The avoidance-behavior was driven by punishments that were presented following a sequence of neutral outcomes, and in turn increased the tendency to elicit an immediate avoidance response (rather than larger learning rates). This impulsive avoidance bias was particularly pronounced in anxious individuals during stress.

Maintaining sinus rhythm after electrical cardioversion

Introduction Atrial fibrillation (AF) and atrial flutter (AFL) are commonly terminated by electrical cardioversion (EC) when a rhythm control strategy is adopted. However, the long-term success following EC is variable. Purpose To determine the clinical characteristics and independent predictors of sinus rhythm (SR) maintenance after EC due to AF/AFL. Methods We conducted a retrospective study enrolling patients with AF/AFL referred to EC in our Cardiology Department, from September 2011 to September 2020. Clinical characteristics and echocardiographic studies were analysed. Primary endpoints were the incidence of ischemic stroke, all-cause and cardiovascular (CV) mortality. Independent predictors of SR maintenance were identified through a binary logistic regression analysis, considering p=0,05. Results A total of 719 patients with a median age of 67 years-old were included, and EC was successfully performed in 93,2%. AFL was diagnosed in 21%, 57,3% had arterial hypertension and 34,6% were obese. 62,1% had persistent AF/AFL, 19,6% presented with first diagnosed AF/AFL and 17,2% had paroxysmal episodes. Left ventricular ejection fraction (LVEF) was preserved in 66,7%. Maintenance of SR after one-year was documented in 64,7% of patients with successful EC. They had lower prevalence of chronic kidney disease (CKD) (2,6% vs 10,7%; p&lt;0,001) and received less electrical shocks during EC (1,20 vs 1,39; p=0,005). There were no differences regarding antiarrhythmic therapy between both groups. Complete LVEF recovery after EC was more frequent in patients who maintained SR (58,8% vs 31,9%; p=0,008), with a greater prevalence of preserved LVEF after EC (88,8% vs 73,6%; p&lt;0,001). During a median follow-up of 1368 days, these patients performed less additional EC (0,26 vs 0,65; p&lt;0,001) and were less referred to ablation procedures (7,1% vs 15,1%; p=0,011). No differences were found regarding stroke rate, but all-cause mortality (12,8% vs 25%; p=0,002) and CV death (3,8% vs 10,9%; p=0,005) were significantly lower in patients who maintained SR. Absence of CKD (p=0,013), applying fewer electric shocks during EC (p=0,013) and preserved LVEF after EC (p=0,004) were independent predictors of SR maintenance. Conclusion In our study, most patients maintained SR one year after EC, which was associated with a lower all-cause and CV mortality. Absence of CKD, applying fewer electric shocks during EC and preserved LVEF after EC were independent predictors of SR maintenance. FUNDunding Acknowledgement Type of funding sources: None.

Applications of Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) and Knowledge Management (KM) Concepts in Defect Identification: A Case of Cable Manufacturing

Compromised Insulation thickness of a cable product is essentially linked to several quality problems ranging from energy leakage, electric shocks and increased chances of electrocution incidence, loss of customer goodwill, difficulty in product usage, material waste, etc. However, identifying the cause of this extrusion defect is a lengthy process due to complexities in extrusion coating processes and its economic effect is harsh on organization's financial bottom line. The extrusion complexities and the financial implications of compromised cable products require the need for a systematic decision approach in identifying vital defect causes for proper containment. A multi-criteria decision-making approach-AHP was deployed to solve similar real-life quality problems in cable manufacturing. With the aid of the decision technique, a hierarchy of decision was modeled and defect causes were properly identified and prioritized based on the members aggregated judgments on Insulation thickness failures. The technique has helped the case organization in having a deeper understanding of their process by guiding the interest of their improvement team towards vital defect warnings while acknowledging the possible influence of the trivial many.

Anticipation of aversive visual stimuli lengthens perceived temporal duration

Subjective estimates of elapsed time are sensitive to the fluctuations in an emotional state. While it is well known that dangerous and threatening situations, such as electric shocks or loud noises, are perceived as lasting longer than safe events, it remains unclear whether anticipating a threatening event speeds up or slows down subjective time and what defines the direction of the distortion. We examined whether the anticipation of uncertain visual aversive events resulted in either underestimation or overestimation of perceived duration. The participants did a temporal bisection task, where they estimated durations of visual cues relative to previously learnt long and short standard durations. The colour of the to-be-timed visual cue signalled either a 50% or 0% probability of encountering an aversive image at the end of the interval. The cue durations were found to be overestimated due to anticipation of aversive images, even when no image was shown afterwards. Moreover, the overestimation was more pronounced in people who reported feeling more anxious while anticipating the image. These results demonstrate that anxiogenic anticipation of uncertain visual threats induce temporal overestimation, which questions a recently proposed view that temporal underestimation evoked by uncertain threats is due to anxiety.