Liver parenchymal changes detected by MR elastography and diffusion-weighted imaging after stereotactic body radiotherapy for hepatocellular carcinoma.

BACKGROUND: Stereotactic body radiotherapy (SBRT) is a local treatment option for hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). SBRT-induced focal reactions on the liver parenchyma have not been thoroughly evaluated using quantitative magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). PURPOSE: To quantitatively evaluate liver parenchymal changes caused by SBRT for HCC using magnetic resonance elastography (MRE) and diffusion-weighted imaging (DWI). METHOD: We retrospectively evaluated 22 adult patients who received SBRT for HCC and 27 who received locoregional therapy other than SBRT (controls). Liver stiffness by MRE and apparent diffusion coefficient (ADC) values by DWI of the liver parenchyma were measured before and after SBRT. Regions of interest (ROIs) were drawn on the two areas of radiation dose distribution levels, > 30 Gy and ≤ 30 Gy; a ROI was drawn in the control group. The two indices were compared before and after SBRT using a Wilcoxon matched-pairs signed-rank test. RESULTS: Liver stiffness and ADC values were significantly increased after SBRT in the dose areas of > 30 Gy compared with those before SBRT (4.05 vs 4.85 kPa; p < 0.05 in liver stiffness, and 1.10 vs 1.40 ×10-3 s/mm2; p < 0.05 in ADC values). In the dose area of ≦ 30 Gy, liver stiffness showed a significant increase in one reader (p = 0.033) but not in another reader (p = 0.085); ADC value showed no significant difference before and after SBRT as per both readers (p > 0.05). The control group demonstrated no significant differences before and after treatment (p > 0.05). CONCLUSION: MRE and DWI can be used to detect SBRT-induced liver parenchymal changes.

Reducing negative attitudes toward older adults and increasing advocacy for policies to support older adults: Bayesian analysis approach.

As the world's population is aging, it is necessary to create societies in which older adults and young people can live together comfortably. Reducing young people's negative attitudes toward older adults is a pressing issue. Given the unique characteristics of older adults, which most people will eventually become, we focused on how long people believe it will be before they become older adults (i.e., the subjective time of becoming older). To examine our hypotheses, we performed a Bayesian analysis, which has attracted considerable attention in psychological research in recent years. In Studies 1 and 2, even after controlling for variables such as youth identity and aging anxiety, those with a longer subjective time of becoming older had more negative attitudes toward older adults and lower advocacy for policies to support older adults. In Study 3, we examined the effect of shortening the participants' subjective time of becoming older by presenting an explanatory text on the stereotype embodiment theory and several related empirical findings. We observed decreased negative attitudes toward both the young-old and old-old groups and increased advocacy for policies to support older adults. In the supplemental experiment, the experimental manipulation used in Study 3 reduced participants' aging anxiety. Future studies should elaborate on the negative attitudes toward a broad subgroup of older adults, and examine the perceived relative importance of policies to support older adults compared with policies in other areas.

Influence of Contact Experience and Germ Aversion on Negative Attitudes Toward Older Adults: Role of Youth Identity.

The world's population is currently aging, and the issue of ageism has become serious worldwide, including in Japan. Negative attitudes toward older adults can have undesirable effects on the mental and physical health of this group. We focused on the effects of contact experience with older adults and germ aversion, or the degree of aversion to infection, on negative attitudes toward older adults. Additionally, we included a moderating variable; youth identity, or the sense of belonging with younger rather than older age groups. An online survey was conducted with Japanese participants (N = 603). We conducted multiple regression analyses and the results showed that the interaction effect between youth identity and contact experience on negative attitudes toward older adults was significant. The findings suggest that contact experience may help in reducing negative attitudes toward older adults among people with low youth identity. The interaction effect between youth identity and germ aversion, however, was not significant. Academic research on the effects of some psychological interventions (e.g., intergenerational social exchange) should pay particular attention to the role of youth identity. Future directions for empirical studies are also discussed.

The Social Acceptance of Smart Health Services in Japan.

In recent years, smart health (s-Health) services have gained momentum worldwide. The s-Health services obtain personal information and aim to provide efficient health and medical services based on these data. In Japan, active efforts to implement these services have increased, but there is a lack of social acceptance. This study examined social acceptance concerning various factors such as trust in the city government, perceived benefits, perceived necessity, perceived risk, and concern about interventions for individuals. An online survey was conducted, and Japanese participants (N = 720) were presented with a vignette depicting a typical s-Health service overview. The results of structural equation modeling showed that trust was positively related to perceived benefit and necessity and negatively related to perceived risk and concern about interventions for individuals. Perceived benefit and trust were positively related to social acceptance, and perceived risk was negatively related to acceptance. The model obtained in this study can help implement s-Health services in public. Empirical studies that contribute to improving public health by investigating the social acceptance of s-Health services should be conducted in the future.

5-Aminolevulinic Acid Attenuates Glucose-Regulated Protein 78 Expression and Hepatocyte Lipoapoptosis via Heme Oxygenase-1 Induction.

Endoplasmic reticulum (ER) stress plays a pivotal role in the progression of steatohepatitis. 5-aminolevulinic acid (5-ALA), a precursor in the heme biosynthetic pathway, has recently been reported to induce heme oxygenase (HO)-1. HO-1 exerts important cytoprotective actions. In this study, we aimed to explore the therapeutic potential of 5-ALA on palmitate-induced ER stress and lipoapoptosis. Huh-7 cells were treated with palmitic acid (PA) (800 µM) to induce steatosis for eight hours. Steatosis was evaluated by Lipi-green staining. 5-ALA (200 µM) was added with PA. The gene expression levels of the nuclear factor erythroid 2-related factor 2 (NRF2), HO-1, Glucose-regulated protein 78 (GRP78), activating transcription factor 6 (ATF6), PKR-like endoplasmic reticulum kinase (PERK), inositol-requiring enzyme 1 (IRE1), C/EBP homologous protein (CHOP), and B-cell lymphoma 2 (BCL-2) were evaluated by RT-PCR. Caspase-3/7 activity was evaluated by fluorescein active Caspase-3/7 staining. Cell death was evaluated by Annexin V/SYTOX green staining. PA significantly induced steatosis and increased GRP78 expression in Huh-7 cells. 5-ALA significantly induced HO-1 and decreased GRP78 expression. ATF6 was subsequently decreased. However, NRF2 and CHOP expression were not altered. Anti-apoptotic BCL-2 expression significantly increased, and Caspase 3/7 activity and cell death also decreased. 5-ALA has a therapeutic potential on hepatic steatosis by suppressing ER stress and lipoapoptosis by attenuating GRP78 via HO-1 induction.

For Whom Does Determinism Undermine Moral Responsibility? Surveying the Conditions for Free Will Across Cultures.

Philosophers have long debated whether, if determinism is true, we should hold people morally responsible for their actions since in a deterministic universe, people are arguably not the ultimate source of their actions nor could they have done otherwise if initial conditions and the laws of nature are held fixed. To reveal how non-philosophers ordinarily reason about the conditions for free will, we conducted a cross-cultural and cross-linguistic survey (N = 5,268) spanning twenty countries and sixteen languages. Overall, participants tended to ascribe moral responsibility whether the perpetrator lacked sourcehood or alternate possibilities. However, for American, European, and Middle Eastern participants, being the ultimate source of one's actions promoted perceptions of free will and control as well as ascriptions of blame and punishment. By contrast, being the source of one's actions was not particularly salient to Asian participants. Finally, across cultures, participants exhibiting greater cognitive reflection were more likely to view free will as incompatible with causal determinism. We discuss these findings in light of documented cultural differences in the tendency toward dispositional versus situational attributions.

Attributing Mind to Groups and Their Members on Two Dimensions.

Psychological research has revealed that people attribute mental states to groups such as companies, especially to those groups that are highly entitative. Moreover, attributing a mind to a group results in the decreased attribution of mind to individual group members. Recent research has demonstrated that the minds of others are perceived in two dimensions-agency and experience. The present study investigated the possibility that this two-dimensional structure exists in mind attribution to groups, and group entitativity has different patterns of relations with these dimensions. A vignette experiment revealed that highly entitative groups were attributed both agency and experience to greater degrees compared to non-entitative groups, while group entitativity reduced only the attribution of agency to the individual group members. Individual members were attributed an equivalent amount of experience regardless of group entitativity. Mind attribution to individual members showed an unpredicted third factor of other-recognition, which was positively related to group entitativity. The implications of mind attribution to moral issues were discussed.

Impact of consumer power on consumers' reactions to corporate transgression.

We addressed how individuals' power influences their judgments regarding corporate transgressions. Based on the Situated Focus Theory of Power, which theorizes that powerful people respond more in accordance to circumstantial factors, we tested the interaction of power and the type of corporate discourse offered by the accused company. Across two studies (overall N = 216), we experimentally primed power (Study 1) and manipulated participants' sense of direct control over the company (Study 2). We consistently found an interaction effect of power and corporate discourse on people's negative attitudes toward the company-particularly on the unwillingness to use the company's products. Particularly, high-power individuals were prone to strongly vary their attitudes based on the mitigative/non-mitigative nature of the discourse, while those low in power were unsusceptible to the type of discourse. The results suggest how the potential rise of consumer power in society may critically influence the consumer-corporate relationships following corporate transgressions.

We perceive a mind in a robot when we help it.

People sometimes perceive a mind in inorganic entities like robots. Psychological research has shown that mind perception correlates with moral judgments and that immoral behaviors (i.e., intentional harm) facilitate mind perception toward otherwise mindless victims. We conducted a vignette experiment (N = 129; Mage = 21.8 ± 6.0 years) concerning human-robot interactions and extended previous research's results in two ways. First, mind perception toward the robot was facilitated when it received a benevolent behavior, although only when participants took the perspective of an actor. Second, imagining a benevolent interaction led to more positive attitudes toward the robot, and this effect was mediated by mind perception. These results help predict what people's reactions in future human-robot interactions would be like, and have implications for how to design future social rules about the treatment of robots.

[False memories based on indirect associations of gender stereotypes of occupations].

This study examined whether false memories, as revealed by the Deese-Roediger-McDermott (DRM) paradigm, can arise from indirect stereotype associations, as proposed by Lenton, Blair, and Hastie (2001). We found significant indications of stereotype-evoked false memories. The participants in our experiment reported that they were unaware of the gender theme of the studied list, suggesting that the false memories were due to implicit associative processes. Although we could not replicate an increase in the false recognition of stereotypically gender-congruent occupations, we detected a gender-congruent effect partially by the analyses of the "Remember" responses and the participants' egalitarian attitudes against the gender role. Moreover, analyses of the "Know" responses indicated that participants' attitudes toward gender roles potentially moderate the degree that they form occupational gender stereotypes. Implications of the results for basic/applied research on the interactions between stereotype and memory are discussed.