Brain activity reveals when white lies are selfish
Activity in prefrontal cortex provides clues about if a white lie has selfish motives
2021-05-31
(Press-News.org) You may think a little white lie about a bad haircut is strictly for your friend's benefit, but your brain activity says otherwise. Distinct activity patterns in the prefrontal cortex reveal when a white lie has selfish motives, according to new research published in JNeurosci.
White lies -- formally called Pareto lies -- can benefit both parties, but their true motives are encoded by the medial prefrontal cortex (MPFC). This brain region computes the value of different social behaviors, with some subregions focusing on internal motivations and others on external ones. Kim and Kim predicted activity patterns in these subregions could elucidate the true motive behind white lies.
The research team deployed a stand in for white lies, having participants tell lies to earn a reward for themselves, for an unknown person, or for both. The team used fMRI to measure the MPFC activity of participants and, by comparing the brain activity of white lies with the selfish and altruistic lies, they could predict the true motivation for the lies. Selfish white lies elicited greater activity in the ventral and rostral MPFC. Activity patterns in the ventral subregion was similar to that of selfish lies, while activity patterns in the rostral subregion was dissimilar to altruistic lies.
INFORMATION:
Paper title: Neural Representation in MPFC Reveals Hidden Selfish Motivation in White Lies
About JNeurosci
JNeurosci, the Society for Neuroscience's first journal, was launched in 1981 as a means to communicate the findings of the highest quality neuroscience research to the growing field. Today, the journal remains committed to publishing cutting-edge neuroscience that will have an immediate and lasting scientific impact, while responding to authors' changing publishing needs, representing breadth of the field and diversity in authorship.
About The Society for Neuroscience
The Society for Neuroscience is the world's largest organization of scientists and physicians devoted to understanding the brain and nervous system. The nonprofit organization, founded in 1969, now has nearly 37,000 members in more than 90 countries and over 130 chapters worldwide.
[Attachments] See images for this press release:
ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:
2021-05-31
By including multi-ethnic participants, a largescale genetic study has identified more regions of the genome linked to type 2 diabetes-related traits than if the research had been conducted in Europeans alone.
The international MAGIC collaboration, made up of more than 400 global academics, conducted a genome-wide association meta-analysis led by the University of Exeter. Now published in Nature Genetics, their findings demonstrate that expanding research into different ancestries yields more and better results, as well as ultimately benefitting global patient care.
Up to now, nearly 87 per cent of ...
2021-05-31
Artificial intelligence promises to be a powerful tool for improving the speed and accuracy of medical decision-making to improve patient outcomes. From diagnosing disease, to personalizing treatment, to predicting complications from surgery, AI could become as integral to patient care in the future as imaging and laboratory tests are today.
But as University of Washington researchers discovered, AI models -- like humans -- have a tendency to look for shortcuts. In the case of AI-assisted disease detection, these shortcuts could lead to diagnostic errors if deployed in clinical settings.
In a new paper published May 31 in Nature Machine Intelligence, ...
2021-05-31
The Water Oxidation Reaction (WOR) is one of the most important reactions on the planet since it is the source of nearly all the atmosphere's oxygen. Understanding its intricacies can hold the key to improve the efficiency of the reaction. Unfortunately, the reaction's mechanisms are complex and the intermediates highly unstable, thus making their isolation and characterisation extremely challenging. To overcome this, scientists are using molecular catalysts as models to understand the fundamental aspects of water oxidation - particularly the oxygen-oxygen bond-forming reaction.
For the first time, scientists in ICIQ's ...
2021-05-31
Between 1991 and 2018, more than a third of all deaths in which heat played a role were attributable to human-induced global warming, according to a new article in Nature Climate Change.
The study, the largest of its kind, was led by the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine (LSHTM) and the University of Bern within the Multi-Country Multi-City (MCC) Collaborative Research Network. Using data from 732 locations in 43 countries around the world it shows for the first time the actual contribution of man-made climate change in increasing mortality risks due to heat.
Overall, ...
2021-05-31
In a study of 11 medical-mystery patients, an international team of researchers led by scientists at the National Institutes of Health and the Uniformed Services University (USU) discovered a new and unique form of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). Unlike most cases of ALS, the disease began attacking these patients during childhood, worsened more slowly than usual, and was linked to a gene, called SPTLC1, that is part of the body's fat production system. Preliminary results suggested that genetically silencing SPTLC1 activity would be an effective strategy for combating this type of ALS.
"ALS is a paralyzing ...
2021-05-31
LOS ANGELES (May 31, 2021) -- Today The Lundquist Institute announced that its investigators contributed data from several studies, including data on Hispanics, African-Americans and East Asians, to the international MAGIC collaboration, composed of more than 400 global academics, who conducted a genome-wide association meta-analysis led by the University of Exeter. Now published in Nature Genetics, their findings demonstrate that expanding research into different ancestries yields more and better results, as well as ultimately benefitting global patient care. Up to now nearly 87 percent of genomic research of this type has been conducted in Europeans. ...
2021-05-31
Pollution from manufacturing is now widespread, affecting all regions in the world, with serious ecological, economic, and political consequences. Heightened public concern and scrutiny have led to numerous governments considering policies that aim to lower pollution and improve environmental qualities. Inter-governmental agreements such as the Paris Agreement and the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals all focus on lowering emissions of pollution. Specifically, they aim to achieve a "zero-emission society," which means that pollution is cleaned up as it is produced, while also reducing pollution (This idea of dealing with pollution is referred to as the "kindergarten rule.")
Of course, any efforts to achieve this ...
2021-05-31
The use of many chemical fumigants in agriculture have been demonstrated to be harmful to human health and the environment and therefore banned from use.
Now, in an effort to reduce waste from the agricultural industry and reduce the amounts of harmful chemicals used, researchers have investigated using organic byproducts from beer production and farming as a potential method to disinfest soils, preserve healthy soil microorganisms and increase crop yields.
In this study published to Frontiers in Sustainable Food Systems, researchers from the Neiker Basque Institute for Agricultural Research and Development in Spain investigated using agricultural by-products rapeseed cake and beer bagasse (spent beer grains), along with fresh cow manure as two organic biodisinfestation ...
2021-05-31
Oncotarget published "Activation of plasmacytoid dendritic cells promotes AML-cell fratricide" which reported that Interferons have been previously shown to aid in the clearance of AML cells. Type I interferons are produced primarily by plasmacytoid dendritic cells. However, these cells exist in a quiescent state in AML.
In addition, the authors showed increased expression of the immune-stimulatory receptor CD40. Then they next tested whether IFNβ would influence antibody-mediated fratricide among AML cells, as our recent work showed that AML cells could undergo cell-to cell killing in the presence of the CD38 antibody daratumumab.
These Oncotarget findings suggest that the tolerogenic phenotype ...
2021-05-31
Oncotarget published "A higher De Ritis ratio (AST/ALT) is a risk factor for progression in high-risk non-muscle invasive bladder cancer" which reported that a recent study revealed that a high De Ritis ratio was a risk factor in some solid malignancies.
This Oncotarget study examined the importance of the De Ritis ratio as a prognostic marker in high-risk NMIBC.
This Oncotarget study examined the importance of the De Ritis ratio as a prognostic marker in high-risk NMIBC
Among these patients, 32 patients developed recurrent disease and 15 patients showed progression.
A multivariate analysis revealed that non-BCG treatment was an independent risk factor ...
LAST 30 PRESS RELEASES:
[Press-News.org] Brain activity reveals when white lies are selfish
Activity in prefrontal cortex provides clues about if a white lie has selfish motives
