(Press-News.org) Frontiers in Human Neuroscience
Agency matters! Social preferences in the three-person ultimatum game
The young field of "neureconomics" has shown that humans have a well-developed, innate sense of justice, presumably due to our evolutionary history as social animals. Johanna Alexopoulos and colleagues from the Medical University of Vienna, Austria, here show that two key variables determine whether we feel that a reward has been fairly distributed: how much we received compared to our peers, and how much influence we had over the distribution. Volunteers who were allowed to determine how a small monetary reward should be distributed exhibited community-level thinking: they felt rewarded themselves as long as either they or their peers received a reasonable sum of money, even if some received more than others. In contrast, people without influence over the distribution only cared about fairness towards themselves, and felt rewarded when influential peers were "punished" by receiving less than others. The researchers conclude that the way we feel about others and our perception of injustice both depend on how much power we have.
Researcher contact:
Johanna Alexopoulos
Department of Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy
Medical University of Vienna, Austria
Email: johanna.alexopoulos@meduniwien.ac.at
URL: http://www.frontiersin.org/Human_Neuroscience/10.3389/fnhum.2013.00312/abstract
Frontiers in Immunology
Control of uterine microenvironment by Foxp3+ cells facilitates embryo implantation
With methods ranging from ceremonies in honor of fertility gods to in vitro fertilization, humans have always tried to promote a successful pregnancy. Implantation, the moment when an embryo inserts into the lining of the uterus, marks the start of a prolonged physiological relationship between mother and offspring. This relationship is critically dependent on the correct balance between inflammatory and anti-inflammatory responses by the mother. Together with the German Cancer Research Center in Heidelberg and two Portuguese institutions, Ana Zenclussen and colleagues from the Otto von Guericke University in Magdeburg here report that so-called regulatory T cells, a type of cells responsible for maintaining immune tolerance and avoiding autoimmunity, are critical for successful implantation. Female mice without regulatory T cells showed impaired implantations with infiltration of inflammatory cells into the uterine lining, resulting in inflammation. Without regulatory T cells, the uterus thus becomes a hostile environment for the fetus. These results may in due course help to overcome infertility in humans, the study concludes.
Researcher contact:
Ana C. Zenclussen
Department of Experimental Obstetrics and Gynecology
Otto von Guericke University, Germany
E-mail: ana.zenclussen@med.ovgu.de
URL: http://www.frontiersin.org/Mucosal_Immunity/10.3389/fimmu.2013.00158/abstract
Frontiers in Psychology
Speech versus singing: Infants choose happier sounds
Mothers around the world regulate the emotions of their babies by body contact and by talking and singing to them. Mariève Corbeil and colleagues at the University of Montreal, Canada, asked whether babies prefer to listen to speech, a type of sound with obvious social significance, or to song, a type of sound that is universally attractive but whose social significance remains unclear. When babies between 4 and 13 were given the choice between listening to speech and song in an unfamiliar language, they listened longer to the stimulus that sounded happier, irrespective of whether this was speech or song. For example, infants listened equally long to joyfully spoken and sung versions of a Turkish children's song, but they listened longer when the lyrics of the song were sung joyfully than when spoken in an emotionally neutral manner.
Researcher contact:
Mariève Corbeil
International Laboratory for Brain, Music and Sound Research (BRAMS)
University of Montreal
Email: marieve.corbeil@umontreal.ca
URL: http://www.frontiersin.org/Emotion_Science/10.3389/fpsyg.2013.00372/abstract
INFORMATION:
About Frontiers
Frontiers, a partner of Nature Publishing Group, is one of the largest and fastest growing Open Access publishers world-wide. Based in Switzerland, and formed by scientists in 2007, its mission is to empower all academic communities to drive research publishing and communication into the 21st century with a range of Open Science tools.
The "Frontiers in" series of journals publish around 500 peer-reviewed articles every month, which receive 5 million monthly views and are supported by over 25,000 editors and reviewers around the world. Frontiers has formed partnerships with international organizations such as the Max Planck Society and the International Union of Immunological Societies (IUIS). For more information, please visit: http://www.frontiersin.org.
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Patients given a clot-busting drug within six hours of a stroke are more likely to have a long-lasting recovery than those who do not receive the treatment, new research has found.
A study of more than 3000 patients reviewed the effects of the drug rt-PA, which is given intravenously to patients who have suffered an ischaemic stroke.
The international trial, led by the University of Edinburgh, found that 18 months after being treated with the drug, more stroke survivors were able to look after themselves.
Patients who received rt-PA had fewer long-term problems with ...
The death of individual species is not the only concern for biologists worried about groups of animals, such as frogs or the "big cats," going extinct. University of California, Berkeley, researchers have found that lack of new emerging species also contributes to extinction.
"Virtually no biologist thinks about the failure to originate as being a major factor in the long term causes of extinction," said Charles Marshall, director of the UC Berkeley Museum of Paleontology and professor of integrative biology. "But we found that a decrease in the origin of new species ...
Raising a child is not cheap. Now try raising one on a fixed income and long past the age one associates with parenthood: 65 years and older.
More than 300,000 grandparents in California have primary responsibility for their grandchildren, and of this group, almost 65,000 are over the age of 65. More than 20,000 care for their grandkids without any extended family assistance at home.
A new study from the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research and the Insight Center for Community Economic Development shows that these families —older adults raising grandchildren alone ...
Washington, DC – One of the largest clinical trials done in infants with congenital (present at birth) heart diseases, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, shows that the increasingly common practice of using the drug clopidogrel (Plavix®) to reduce shunt-related blood flow issues is not effective in the dose studied.
"Once again, pediatric-specific research shows that newborns and infants are not little adults," said David Wessel, MD, Chief Medical Officer, Children's National Medical Center, and lead author on the international study published in the June ...
Picture two light beams intersecting one another in space. When the beams touch one another, does the light bend? Reflect? Combine into a single beam?
The answer, of course, is the light beams do nothing; they simply continue on their path. That is because in most media — including air, water, and vacuums — particles of quantized light beams called photons do not interact.
But in certain crystalline materials and with a powerful enough laser, it is possible to make photons interact with one another and take on a special set of characteristics. Known as nonlinear optical ...
Mealybugs only eat plant sap, but sap doesn't contain all the essential amino acids the insects need to survive. Luckily, the bugs have a symbiotic relationship with two species of bacteria – one living inside the other in a situation unique to known biology – to manufacture the nutrients sap doesn't provide.
The net result: The bacteria get a comfy mealybug home, and the bugs get the nutrition they need to live.
University of Montana microbiologist John McCutcheon describes such mutually beneficial relationships used to solve life's little problems as "almost hilariously ...
Scientists have discovered the survival secret to a genetic mutation that stokes leukemia cells, solving an evolutionary riddle and paving the way to a highly targeted therapy for leukemia. In a paper published today in Cell, researchers at NYU Langone Medical Center describe how a mutated protein, called Fbxw7, behaves differently when expressed in cancer cells versus healthy cells. "Fbxw7 is essential for making blood cells, so the big mystery is why a mutation on a gene so important for survival would persist," says lead author Iannis Aifantis, PhD, chair of pathology ...
San Francisco, CA. (June 20, 2013) – Residents in anesthesiology training programs have high rates of burnout and depression, reports a survey study in the July issue of Anesthesia & Analgesia, official journal of the International Anesthesia Research Society (IARS).
The findings raise concerns that, "In addition to effects on the health of anesthesiology trainees, burnout and depression may also affect patient care and safety," write Dr Gildasio S. de Oliveira, Jr, and colleagues of Northwestern University, Chicago.
Burnout and Depression Are Common in Anesthesia Trainees…
The ...
San Francisco, CA. (June 20, 2013) – Retention of guidewires used to place central venous catheters (CVCs) is a complication that is considered always preventable—but nevertheless still happens, according to a report in the July issue of Anesthesia & Analgesia, official journal of the International Anesthesia Research Society (IARS).
Dr Andrea Vannucci and colleagues report their hospital's experience of four patients with retained guidewires, and analyze risk factors for these rare, preventable medical errors. A pair of accompanying editorials support the need for more ...
WASHINGTON —More than three-quarters (81.8 percent) of unscheduled admissions to the hospital now come through the emergency department, which is a sharp increase from the previous decade when only 64.5 percent of unscheduled admissions came through the ER. A study, published early online this week in the journal Medical Care, re-confirms recent findings by the RAND Corporation highlighting the growing role emergency physicians play in health care beyond the emergency department ("Changes in the Source of Unscheduled Hospitalizations in the United States").
"Although ...
