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This study employs event-related potential (ERP) to examine the impact of empathic concern on prosocial decision-making with costs in both gain and loss contexts. In this experiment, participants can choose between two types of lottery tickets and pay lottery money to help the target person gain more money or lose less money. The behavioral results showed that regardless of the context of the decision (financial loss or gain), participants tended to help individuals who had induced high empathic concern. ERP results show that compared to the low-empathic-concern condition, the high-empathic-concern condition induced greater P3 amplitude in the gain context. However, this change in P3 amplitude caused by empathic concern did not occur in the context of loss. These findings indicate that empathic concern has different psychological mechanisms that moderate prosocial behavior in gain and loss contexts.

Abstract Background Luteinizing hormone (LH) can stimulate mural granulosa cells to produce Amphiregulin (AREG), which can induce the resumption of meiosis in oocytes. Theca cells are present in the outer layer of follicles, providing communication with the pituitary axis through the established vascular system around the follicle. As LH target cells, it is unknown whether theca cells can produce AREG after LH stimulation. Methods Primary cultured human theca cells were treated with LH (with or without the inhibitor of PKA, H89), or agonists of adenylate cyclase (forskolin or db-cAMP). The mRNA and protein levels of AREG were evaluated by RT-qPCR, immunochemistry, immunofluorescence, western blotting, and ELISA. Results Immunohistochemistry of normal ovarian tissue obtained in the early-mid follicle phase showed that AREG expression was absent in both the theca layer and the granulosa cell layer of antral follicles. Double immunofluorescent staining revealed colocalization of AREG and CYP17A1 in human theca cells and colocalization of FSHR and AREG in human granulosa cells isolated from follicular fluid collected during IVF/ICSI after hCG trigger. LH significantly increased the mRNA and protein levels of AREG in human theca cells and the concentration of AREG in the culture medium. Forskolin and db-cAMP, activators of the cAMP/PKA signalling pathway, also significantly increased the mRNA and protein levels of AREG in human theca cells and the concentration of AREG in the culture medium. H89 antagonized the stimulating effect of LH on AREG expression in human theca cells. In addition, the concentration of AREG was lower in polycystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS) follicular fluid than in normal follicular fluid. The mRNA levels of AREG were significantly lower in PCOS granulosa cells and theca cells than in normal granulosa cells and theca cells. Conclusion LH can stimulate the expression of AREG in human theca cells, and the adenylate cyclase/cAMP/PKA cascade may mediate this process. Expression of AREG is decreased in PCOS theca cells compared to normal theca cells, with or without LH stimulation.

Recent studies have revealed that people might experience a lessened sense of agency for negative consequences by claiming that they were obeying orders. However, little is known about the cognitive neural mechanism behind the reduced sense of agency when individuals are forced to inflict physical harm on others. This study adopted temporal estimation tasks to investigate the internal mechanism of voluntary action on the sense of agency and the moderating effect of outcome valence as measured by event-related potentials (ERPs). In the temporal estimation task, participants were asked to make trade-offs of monetary gains for themselves against painful electric stimuli experienced by strangers, subjectively estimated the perceptual temporal interval between keypress actions (i.e., free or coercive actions) and consequent outcomes (i.e., positive or negative tones) and rated the feeling of control. The results showed that perceived temporal interval was shorter for positive tones compared with negative tones in the coercive condition, and induced more negative N1 and N300 amplitudes, which indicated that the implicit sense of agency was higher. However, the explicit sense of agency was stronger in the free condition than in the coercive condition, which was not influenced by outcome valence. We discuss the implications of utilizing positive feedback and free choice as significant strategies for those experiencing the abnormal sense of agency.

Different types of green products require different marketing approaches to promote individual green purchasing behaviors. Previous studies have focused only on the effects of message framing on the promotion of different types of green products; however, little is known about the role of underlying emotions. Using event-related potentials (ERPs), this study investigated the neural responses to message framings and anticipated pride in green product types to assess their level of influence on green consumption. Participants in this study were randomly assigned to the anticipated pride versus control groups, and asked to make green consumption decisions involving different types (self- vs. other-interested) of green products, utilizing both gain and loss framing. The behavioral results demonstrated that participants in the anticipated pride group made more green product purchase choices than those in the control group. The ERP results showed that within the loss framing of the control group, other-interested green products induced larger N400 and smaller late positive potential (LPP) amplitudes than self-interested green products, whereas the results showed the opposite trend for the anticipated pride group. These results indicate that although individuals might have biases in their motivation that lead them to focus on self-interested green products, anticipating pride reduces cognitive conflicts and increases their motivation to focus on other-interested green products in the context of loss.

Abstract Background In preimplantation genetic testing for aneuploidy (PGT-A), appropriate evaluation of mosaic embryos is important because of the adverse implications of transferring embryos with high-level mosaicism or discarding those with low-level mosaicism. Despite the availability of multiple reliable techniques for PGT-A, data comparing the detection of mosaicism using these techniques are scarce. To address this gap in the literature, we compared the detection ability of the two most commonly used PGT-A platforms, next-generation sequencing (NGS) and the single-nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) array, for mosaic embryos. Results We retrospectively reviewed the data of PGT-A or preimplantation genetic testing for chromosomal structural rearrangements (PGT-SR) conducted at our center from January 2018 to October 2020, and selected blastocysts that underwent aneuploidy screening with both an SNP array and NGS. Trophectoderm biopsy, multiple displacement amplification (MDA), and aneuploidy screening with an SNP array were conducted on the enrolled blastocysts. When the SNP array indicated mosaicism, NGS was performed on the corresponding MDA product for verification. Among the 105 blastocysts diagnosed with mosaicism with the SNP array, 80 (76.19%) showed mosaicism in NGS, with complete and partial concordance rates of 47.62% (50/105) and 18.10% (19/105), respectively. The complete discordance rate of the two platforms was 34.29% (36/105). That is, 10.48% (11/105) of the blastocysts were diagnosed with completely different types of mosaicism with the two platforms, while 13.33% (14/105) and 10.48% (11/105) of the embryos diagnosed as showing mosaicism with SNP were detected as showing aneuploidy and euploidy with NGS, respectively. Conclusions The consistency of NGS and the SNP array in the diagnosis of embryo mosaicism is extremely low, indicating the need for larger and well-designed studies to determine which platform is more accurate in detecting mosaic embryos.

Previous studies have examined the outcome evaluation related to the self and other, and recent research has explored the outcome evaluation of the self and other with pro-social implications. However, the evaluation processing of outcomes in the group in need remains unclear. This study has examined the neural mechanisms of evaluative processing by gambling for the self and charity, respectively. At the behavioral level, when participants make decisions for themselves, they made riskier decisions following the gain than loss in small outcomes and engage in more risky behaviors following the loss than gain in large outcomes. However, magnitude and valence did not affect the next risky behavior when participants made decisions for the charity. At the neurophysiological level, the results found that the FRN was larger for the charity outcome than for the self-outcome. For FRN, the valence difference of small outcomes was smaller than that of large outcomes. The P3 response was larger for the self-outcome than for the charity outcome. Meanwhile, compared with the small outcome, the self-charity discrepancies have a significant difference in large outcomes. In addition, the FRN amplitude for self in large outcomes was negatively correlated with the upcoming risky choices, regardless of outcome valence. The behavioral results suggest that people are more likely to optimize strategies for themselves than for the charity. The ERP findings indicated that people focus more on charity outcome than self-outcome in the early stage. In the middle and late stages, people turn attention to their outcomes, and the difference between self’s and charity’s outcome varies with the magnitude. Specifically, it is only in large outcomes that people engage more emotional attention or motivation in their outcomes, but self and charity outcomes had a similar emotional engagement in small outcomes.

ObjectivesParticipation in mass sports is one of the most efficient strategies for people to attain physical and mental health in China. Prosocial behavior has a positive effect on social development. This study developed a conceptual model with mass sports activity as the independent variable, prosocial behavior as the dependent variable, and flow trait and subjective wellbeing as the mediating variables.MethodsParticipants (N = 351) completed an online survey. Mass sports activity, flow trait, subjective wellbeing, and prosocial behavior were measured using the physical activity rank scale-3 (PARS-3), short dispositional flow scale (SDFS), index of wellbeing (IWB), and prosocial tendencies measure (PTM), respectively. Descriptive statistics compared differences between sports population (PARS-3, ≥ 36) and non-sports population (PARS-3,

Anticentromere antibodies (ACA) were associated with lower oocyte maturation rates and cleavage rates, while the mechanism was not clear. Aims of this study were to examine whether active immunization with centromere protein C could elicit the CENP-C autoantibody in mice and the impacts of the CENP-C autoantibody on oocyte meiosis. Mice were divided into two groups, one was the experimental group immunized with human centromere protein C and Freund’s adjuvant (CFA), and the other was the control group injected with CFA only. Serum and oocytes of BALB/c mice immunized with human centromere protein C (CENP-C) in complete Freund’s adjuvant (CFA) or injected with only CFA were studied for the development of the CENP-C antibody. Rates of germinal vesicle breakdown (GVBD), first polar body (Pb1) extrusion, abnormal spindle morphology, and chromosome misalignment were compared between the experimental group and the control group. The CENP-C antibody was only observed in serum and oocytes of mice immunized with the centromere protein C antigen. The first polar body (Pb1) extrusion rate was lower in the experimental group (P

Liquid sloshing in ship tanks would have a direct effect on ship dynamic stability, and thus is of great importance for navigation safety. To calculate the sloshing-induced force on real ship tanks, this paper presents an approach to numerically simulate the liquid-sloshing in complex tanks using the moving particle semi-implicit (MPS) method. The sloshing-induced force is numerically calculated and used to investigate the effect of different excitation conditions in which the realistic ship motions under different loading conditions have been taken into account. Simulation results show that the maximum sloshing-induced force is much bigger than the corresponding static one. Meanwhile, both the rolling angle and period have significant effects on liquid sloshing.

Abstract Consciously and unconsciously perceived rewards are thought to modulate essential cognitive processes in different ways. However, little is known about whether and how they modulate higher-order social cognitive processes. The present ERP study aimed to investigate the effect of consciously and unconsciously perceived rewards on the temporal course of self-face processing. After a monetary reward (high or low) was presented either supraliminally or subliminally, participants gain this reward by rapidly and correctly judging whether the mouth shape of a probe face and a target face (self, friend, and stranger) were same. Results showed a significant three-way interaction between reward value, reward presentation type, and face type observed at the P3 component. For the supraliminal presentations, self-faces elicited larger P3 after high compared to low reward cues; however, friend-faces elicited smaller P3 and stranger-faces elicited equivalent P3 under this condition. For the subliminal presentations, self-faces still elicited larger P3 for high reward cues, whereas there were no significant P3 differences for friend-faces or stranger-faces. Together, these results suggest that consciously processed rewards have distinct advantages over unconsciously processed rewards in facilitating self-face processing by flexibly and effectively integrating reward value with self-relevance.

Complex moral decision making may share certain cognitive mechanisms with economic decision making under risk situations. However, it is little known how people weigh gains and losses between self and others during moral decision making under risk situations. The current study adopted the dilemma scenario-priming paradigm to examine how self-relevance and reputational concerns influenced moral decision making. Participants were asked to decide whether they were willing to sacrifice their own interests to help the protagonist (friend, acquaintance, or stranger) under the dilemmas of reputational loss risk, while the helping choices, decision times and emotional responses were recorded. In Study 1, participants showed a differential altruistic tendency, indicating that participants took less time to make more helping choices and subsequently reported weaker unpleasant experience toward friends compared to acquaintances and strangers. In Study 2, participants still made these egoistically biased altruistic choices under the low reputational loss risk conditions. However, such an effect was weakened by the high reputational loss risks. Results suggested that moral principle guiding interpersonal moral decision making observed in our study is best described as an egoistically biased altruism, and that reputational concerns can play a key role in restraining selfish tendency.

People often hear classic allusions such as plugging one’s ears while stealing a bell, drawing cakes to satisfy one’s hunger, and the emperor’s new clothes. These allusions reflect a principle that people believe in nonexistent phenomena to satisfy their desires, also called self-deception. The current research used three experiments to examine the impact of social status and cognitive load on self-deception, and further to explore the inner connection about cognitive load and self-deception. The results found that deceiving individuals of high social status can play a role through the intrinsic mechanism of involuntary conscious memory (ICM). The higher the cognitive load of the deceiver, the greater the possibility of deception. The study demonstrated that involuntary conscious memory is the internal mechanism of self-deception, further explore the origin of self-deception, and enrich the self-deception theory.

This study was designed to investigate the impact of self-relevance between preschool children and recipients on children’s sharing behavior in dictator games using a forced-choice resource distribution paradigm. Experiment 1: A total of 75 children aged 3–6 years were evaluated in a first-party situation in which they were distributed as recipients and dictators and shared resources with distracting recipients with different extents of self-relevance under three different payoff structures, including non-costly, costly, and envy structures. Children could choose between a sharing option and a non-sharing option. The results showed that, in a first-party situation, children aged 3–6 years old typically share more resources with highly self-relevant recipients (friends) than with moderately self-relevant recipients (acquaintances) and lowly self-relevant recipients (strangers) and that they share more resources with moderately self-relevant recipients (acquaintances) than lowly self-relevant recipients (strangers). Experiment 2: A total of 62 children aged 3–6 years old were evaluated in a third-party situation in which they were distributed not as recipients but only dictators, making decisions between the options of sharing more or sharing less with distracting recipients who had different extents of self-relevance under three different payoff structures, such as non-bias, high self-bias, and low self-bias. The results showed that, in a third-party situation, children typically share in a similar manner to that of Experiment 1, meaning that children display selective generosity and that the self-relevance between the children and recipients played a key role. Across age groups, this study of preschool children (total N = 137) demonstrates a degree of effect of self-relevance on preschool children’s sharing in first-party and third-party situations, with highly self-relevant recipients receiving a more preferential share in the dictator game than those with low self-relevance, although this effect was stronger in the older preschool children.

The exertion of self-control is known to result in subsequent detrimental effects on prosocial behaviors. Moreover, certain studies have demonstrated that positive emotions could drive people to allocate more attentional resources for conducting prosocial behaviors. However, whether and how awe – one important type of positive incidental emotion – moderates the effect of exerting self-control on subsequent prosocial behaviors remains unclear yet. The anonymous economic dictator game is an effective index of prosocial behaviors. We examined the influence of exerting self-control on prosocial behavior and the moderating role of awe on the effect of exerting self-control on prosocial behaviors in two experiments (N = 280). We adopted the incongruent Stroop task to induce the exertion of self-control and participants were required to allocate money to others in the anonymous dictator game (Experiment 1). We used the narrative recall task paradigm to elicit the emotion of awe during the interval between Stroop tasks and the dictator game (Experiment 2). Results indicated that the exertion of self-control was detrimental to prosocial behaviors and awe weakened the detrimental effects of exerting self-control on prosocial behavior. We interpreted these results in terms of the protective inhibition of self-regulation and motivation (PRISM) model.

People have different motivations to get along with others in different sociality mental modes (i.e., communal mode and market mode), which might affect social decision-making. The present study examined how these two types of sociality mental modes affect the processing of advice-giving using the event-related potentials (ERPs). After primed with the communal mode and market mode, participants were instructed to decide whether or not give an advice (profitable or damnous) to a stranger without any feedback. The behavioral results showed that participants preferred to give the profitable advice to the stranger more slowly compared with the damnous advice, but this difference was only observed in the market mode condition. The ERP results indicated that participants demonstrated more negative N1 amplitude for the damnous advice compared with the profitable advice, and larger P300 was elicited in the market mode relative to both the communal mode and the control group. More importantly, participants in the market mode demonstrated larger P300 for the profitable advice than the damnous advice, whereas this difference was not observed at the communal mode and the control group. These findings are consistent with the dual-process system during decision-making and suggest that market mode may lead to deliberate calculation for costs and benefits when giving the profitable advice to others.

Our purpose is to explore whether anti-dsDNA antibody, which was demonstrated to enter living cells and induced apoptosis, could adversely affect reproductive outcomes. A total of 259 women receiving the in vitro fertilization-embryo transfer (IVF) cycle were enrolled in this study, including 52 women with positive ANA and anti-dsDNA (ANA+/anti-dsDNA+ group), 86 women with positive ANA and negative anti-dsDNA (ANA+/anti-dsDNA− group), and 121 women with negative ANA and anti-dsDNA (ANA−/anti-dsDNA− group). 136 nonpregnant women among 259 patients in the IVF-ET cycle were enrolled in the hormone replacement therapy frozen-thawed embryo transfer (HRT-TET) cycle. We compared basic characters and IVF outcomes among three groups in fresh embryo transfer and frozen-thawed embryo transfer cycle, respectively. The number of retrieved oocytes, available embryos, and high-quality embryos in the ANA+/anti-dsDNA+ group was lower than those in the other two groups in the fresh embryo transfer cycle. The rates of fertilization, implantation, and clinical pregnancy in the ANA+/anti-dsDNA+ group were the lowest, while the early miscarriage rate was the highest in the ANA+/anti-dsDNA+ group both in the fresh embryo transfer cycle and in the frozen-thawed embryo transfer cycle. Our data suggested that anti-dsDNA antibody may be the essential marker for defective oocytes or embryos in infertile women with any type of ANA.

Background. Previously, we found women with positive anticentromere antibody showed impaired potential of oocyte maturation and embryo cleavage; the possible mechanism behind this phenomenon was still unknown. Objective. Thus, the present study aimed to preliminarily explore whether ACA could penetrate into the living embryos and impair their developmental potential via in vitro coculture with mouse embryos. Methods. Mouse embryos were collected and used for in vitro culture with polyclonal anticentromere protein A (CENP-A) antibody; then, immunofluorescence assay was performed to determine the penetration of antibody into embryos, and embryo development potential was observed. Results. All embryos cultured with anti-CENP-A antibody exhibited immunofluorescence on the nucleus, while none of the embryos from the control groups showed immunofluorescence. Additionally, embryos cultured with anti-CENP-A antibody experienced significant growth impairment compared with controls. Conclusion. Mouse embryos may be a direct target for ACA in vitro prior to implantation. However, the precise mechanism needs further clarification.

We investigated the influence of negative emotion on the degree of self-reference effect using event-related potentials (ERPs). We presented emotional pictures and self-referential stimuli (stimuli that accelerate and improve processing and improve memory of information related to an individual’s self-concept) in sequence. Participants judged the color of the target stimulus (self-referential stimuli). ERP results showed that the target stimuli elicited larger P2 amplitudes under neutral conditions than under negative emotional conditions. Under neutral conditions, N2 amplitudes for highly self-relevant names (target stimulus) were smaller than those for any other names. Under negative emotional conditions, highly and moderately self-referential stimuli activated smaller N2 amplitudes. P3 amplitudes activated by self-referential processing under negative emotional conditions were smaller than neutral conditions. In the left and central sites, highly self-relevant names activated larger P3 amplitudes than any other names. But in the central sites, moderately self-relevant names activated larger P3 amplitudes than non-self-relevant names. The findings indicate that negative emotional processing could weaken the degree of self-reference effect.

The present study investigated neural correlations underlying the psychological processing of stimuli with various degrees of self-relevance. Event-related potentials were recorded for names that differ in their extent of relevance to the study participant. Participants performed a three-stimulus oddball task. ERP results showed larger P2 averaged amplitudes for highly self-relevant names than for moderately self-relevant, minimally self-relevant, and non-self-relevant names. N2 averaged amplitudes were larger for the highly self-relevant names than for the moderately self-relevant, minimally self-relevant, and non-self-relevant names. Highly self-relevant names elicited larger P3 averaged amplitudes than the moderately self-relevant names which, in turn, had larger P3 values than for minimally self-relevant names. Minimally self-relevant stimuli elicited larger P3 averaged amplitudes than non-self-relevant stimuli. These results demonstrate a degree effect of self-reference, which was indexed using electrophysiological activity.