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Prosocial learning involves the acquisition of knowledge and skills necessary for making decisions that benefit others. We asked if, in the context of value-based decision-making, there is any difference between learning strategies for oneself vs. for others. We implemented a 2-step reinforcement learning paradigm in which participants learned, in separate blocks, to make decisions for themselves or for a present other confederate who evaluated their performance. We replicated the canonical features of the model-based and model-free reinforcement learning in our results. The behaviour of the majority of participants was best explained by a mixture of the model-based and model-free control, while most participants relied more heavily on MB control, and this strategy enhanced their learning success. Regarding our key self-other hypothesis, we did not find any significant difference between the behavioural performances nor in the model-based parameters of learning when comparing self and other conditions.

Background: It has recently been proposed that a key motivation for joining groups is the protection from consequences of negative behaviours, such as norm violations. Here we empirically test this claim by investigating whether cooperative decisions and the punishment of associated fairness-based norm violations are different in individuals vs. collectives in economic games. Methods: In the ultimatum game, participants made or received offers that they could reject at a cost to their outcome, a form of social punishment. In the dictator game with third-party punishment, participants made offers to a receiver while being observed by a punisher, or could themselves punish unfair offers. Results: Participants made lower offers when making their decision as part of a group as compared to alone. This difference correlated with participants’ overall mean offers: those who were generally less generous were even less so in a group, suggesting that the collective structure was compatible with their intention. Participants were slower when punishing vs not punishing an unfair offer. Importantly here, they were slower when deciding whether to punish or not to punish groups as compared to individuals, only when the offer concerned them directly in second party punishment. Participants thus take more time to punish others, and to make their mind on whether to punish or not when facing a group of proposers. Conclusions: Together, these results show that people behave differently in a group, both in their willingness to share with others and in their punishment of norm violations. This could be explained by the fact that being in a collective structure allows to share responsibility with others, thereby protecting from negative consequences of norm violations.

TheRps6kb1gene encodes the 70 kDa ribosomal protein S6 kinase (p70S6K), which is a serine/threonine kinase regulated by phosphoinositide 3-kinase (PI3K)/mammalian target of rapamycin (mTOR) pathway. p70S6K plays a crucial role in controlling cell cycle, growth and survival. The PI3K/mTOR signalling pathway is one of the major mechanisms for controlling cell survival, proliferation and metabolism and is the central regulator of translation of some components of protein synthesis system. Upon activation, this kinase phosphorylates S6 protein of ribosomal subunit 40S resulting in selective translation of unique family of mRNAs that contain oligopyrimidine tract on 5’ transcriptional site (5′TOP). 5′TOP mRNAs are coding the components of translational apparatus including ribosomal proteins and elongation factors. Due to the role of p70S6K in protein synthesis and also its involvement in a variety of human diseases ranging from diabetes and obesity to cancer, p70S6K is now being considered as a new therapeutic target for drug development. Furthermore, p70S6K acts as a biomarker for response to immunosuppressant as well as anticancer effects of inhibitors of the mTOR. Because of the narrow therapeutic index of mTOR inhibitors, drug monitoring is essential, and this is usually done by measuring blood drug levels, therapeutic response and drug-induced adverse effects. Recent studies have suggested that plasma p70S6K is a reliable index for the monitoring of patient response to mTOR inhibitors. Therefore, a better understanding of p70S6K and its role in various pathological conditions could enable the development of strategies to aid diagnosis, prognosis and treatment schedules.

Materials and Methods: 9 genes involved in endometriosis in patients suffering from endometriosis and also in healthy individuals (total 260 samples) were examined. The data were obtained from Ibn Sina (Jahad Daneshgahi) Research Center of new Technologies in Biological Sciences Institute. The study incorporated standard process Crisp for data mining. Weka data mining and software modeling were implemented with the aid of four algorithms. Results: Comparison of four algorithms implied prominent accuracy of K-Star model. Meanwhile, filtering, while reducing the percentage of models, presented a positive impact on the MLP model. The lowest percentage pertained to Naïve Bayes. Conclusion: K-Star model without any filtering proved to have the highest accuracy in the early diagnosis of endometriosis.

When deciding whether or not to bring an umbrella to work, your confidence will be influenced by the sky outside the window (direct evidence) as well as by, for example, whether or not people walking in the street have their own umbrella (indirect or contingent evidence). These 2 distinct aspects of decision confidence have not yet been assessed independently within the same framework. Here we study the relative contributions of stimulus-specific and social-contingent information on confidence formation. Dyads of participants made visual perceptual decisions, first individually and then together by sharing their wagers in their decisions. We independently manipulated the sensory evidence and the social consensus available to participants and found that both type of evidence contributed to wagers. Consistent with previous work, the amount people were prepared to wager covaried with the strength of sensory evidence. However, social agreements and disagreement affected wagers in opposite directions and asymmetrically. These different contributions of sensory and social evidence to wager were linearly additive. Moreover, average metacognitive sensitivity-namely the association between wagers and accuracy-between interacting dyad members positively correlated with dyadic performance and dyadic benefit above average individual performance. Our results provide a general framework that accounts for how both social context and direct sensory evidence contribute to decision confidence. (PsycINFO Database Record