Confusion cannot explain cooperative behavior in public goods games.

Some scholars find that behavioral variation in the public goods game is explained by variations in participants' understanding of how to maximize payoff and that confusion leads to cooperation. Their findings lead them to question the common assumption in behavioral economics experiments that choices reflect motivations. We conduct two experiments, in which we minimize confusion by providing participants with increased training. We also introduce a question that specifically assesses participants' understanding of payoff maximization choices. Our experimental results show that the distribution of behavior types is significantly different when participants play with computers versus humans. A significant increase in contributions is also observed when participants play with humans compared to when they play with computers. Moreover, social norms may be the main motive for contributions when playing with computers. Our findings suggest that social preferences, rather than confusion, play a crucial role in determining contributions in public goods games when playing with humans. We therefore argue that the assumption in behavioral economics experiments that choices reveal motivations is indeed valid.

Application of artificial hibernation technology in acute brain injury.

Controlling intracranial pressure, nerve cell regeneration, and microenvironment regulation are the key issues in reducing mortality and disability in acute brain injury. There is currently a lack of effective treatment methods. Hibernation has the characteristics of low temperature, low metabolism, and hibernation rhythm, as well as protective effects on the nervous, cardiovascular, and motor systems. Artificial hibernation technology is a new technology that can effectively treat acute brain injury by altering the body's metabolism, lowering the body's core temperature, and allowing the body to enter a state similar to hibernation. This review introduces artificial hibernation technology, including mild hypothermia treatment technology, central nervous system regulation technology, and artificial hibernation-inducer technology. Upon summarizing the relevant research on artificial hibernation technology in acute brain injury, the research results show that artificial hibernation technology has neuroprotective, anti-inflammatory, and oxidative stress-resistance effects, indicating that it has therapeutic significance in acute brain injury. Furthermore, artificial hibernation technology can alleviate the damage of ischemic stroke, traumatic brain injury, cerebral hemorrhage, cerebral infarction, and other diseases, providing new strategies for treating acute brain injury. However, artificial hibernation technology is currently in its infancy and has some complications, such as electrolyte imbalance and coagulation disorders, which limit its use. Further research is needed for its clinical application.

[M8L4]8+-Type Squares Self-Assembled by Dipalladium Corners and Bridging Aromatic Dipyrazole Ligands for Iodine Capture.

Square-like metallamacrocyclic palladium(II) complexes [M8L4]8+ (1-7) were synthesized by reacting aromatic dipyrazole ligands (H2L1-H2L3 with pyromellitic arylimide-, 1,4,5,8-naphthalenetetracarboxylic arylimide-, and anthracene-based aromatic groups, respectively) with dipalladium corners ([(bpy)2Pd2(NO3)2](NO3)2, [(dmbpy)2Pd2(NO3)2](NO3)2, or [(phen)2Pd2(NO3)2](NO3)2, where bpy = 2,2'-bipyridine, dmbpy = 4,4'-dimethyl-2,2'-bipyridine, and phen = 1,10-phenanthroline) in aqueous solutions via metal-directed self-assembly. Metallamacrocycles 1-7 were fully characterized by 1H and 13C nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy and electrospray ionization mass spectrometry, and the square structure of 7·8NO3- was further confirmed via single crystal X-ray diffraction. These square-like metallamacrocycles exhibit effective performance for iodine adsorption.

All-trans retinoic acid increases the pathogenicity of the H9N2 influenza virus in mice.

BACKGROUND: The H9N2 virus can infect not only birds but also humans. The pathogenicity of H9N2 virus infection is determined by an excessive immune response in the lung. All-trans retinoic acid (ATRA), the active metabolite of vitamin A, plays an important regulatory role and has been widely used in the clinical practice. This study was aimed to investigate whether ATRA could regulate the immune response to H9N2 virus infection in the lungs of mice, thereby reducing the pathogenicity of the H9N2 virus in mice. METHODS: Mice were infected intranasally with H9N2 virus, and injected intraperitoneally with 0.2 mL of ATRA at low (1 mg/kg), medium (5 or 10 mg/kg), or high therapeutic dose (20 mg/kg), and toxic dose (40, 60, or 80 mg/kg), once per day for 10 days. Clinical signs, survival rates, and lung gross pathology were compared between the ATRA-treated H9N2-infected group, the ATRA group, and the H9N2-infected group, to investigate the effect of different doses of ATRA on the pathogenicity of H9N2 virus. Additionally, the viral load and cytokine concentration of lungs were measured at 3, 5, 7, and 9 days after infection, to investigate the potential mechanism of ATRA in affecting the pathogenicity of the H9N2 virus. Expression levels of cellular retinoic acid-binding protein 1 (CRABP1), cellular retinoic acid-binding protein 2 (CRABP2), and Retinoic acid-inducible gene-I (RIG-I) were detected using Western blotting. RESULTS: The ATRA-treated H9N2-infected mice showed more severe clinical signs compared with the H9N2-infected group. The medium and high therapeutic doses of ATRA reduced the survival rates, aggravated lung tissue damage, decreased the expression of interferon beta (IFN-ß), and increased the concentrations of interleukin-1 beta (IL-1ß), tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNF-α), and C-C motif chemokine ligand 2 (CCL2) in the lungs of the H9N2-infected mice. At the same time, the expression patterns of CRABP1, CRABP2, and RIG-I were changed in mice infected by H9N2 and treated with different concentrations of ATRA. CONCLUSIONS: Our findings suggest that the therapeutic dose of ATRA can increase the pathogenicity of the H9N2 virus. Therefore, the consequences of those infected by influenza virus would be more severe after ATRA treatment.

Eliciting Psychological Ownership of Object by Marking Organizational Name: The Role of Belongingness.

Psychological ownership critically entails the need for home (a place in which to dwell or a place of belongingness). However, the question of how an individual's need for belongingness within an organization affects their psychological ownership of organization-linked objects remains unexplored. We first conducted a behavioral study to determine whether psychological ownership of object can be elicited by marking the object with the name of the subjects' organization. The participants in this behavioral study reported a higher level of psychological ownership when objects were marked with their own organization's name (i.e., in-organization objects) compared with objects marked with another organization's name (i.e., out-organization objects). Importantly, this effect was more pronounced among subjects who experienced a stronger sense of organizational belongingness. We subsequently conducted a second study to explore its underlying neural mechanism. Our findings indicated that participants with a higher level of perceived organizational belongingness exhibited a significantly larger amplitude of the P300 component of event-related potential in response to in-organization objects compared with their response to out-organization objects. However, no significant difference in the P300 component was found for participants who lacked a sense of organizational belongingness.

Vitamin D receptor and 1α-hydroxylase are highly expressed in lungs of mice infected with H9N2 avian influenza viruses.

The H9N2 avian influenza viruses infect poultry worldwide, and can potentially cause a human pandemic without adaptation. Vitamin D3 (D3) is increasingly being recognized for its extra-skeletal roles, such as the inflammatory and immune responses to infection. The aim of this study was to analyze the changes in vitamin D metabolizing enzymes and vitamin D receptor (VDR) in the lung tissues of mice infected with H9N2. The mice were intranasally inoculated with the appropriate dose of the virus, and various clinical indices were measured on days 3, 7, 14 and 21 post-infection. H9N2 infection significantly increased the expression levels of 1α-hydroxylase mRNA and protein, which is the activating enzyme of 25-hydroxyvitamin D (25(OH)D3), but had no significant effect on the 25(OH)D3 inactivating enzyme 24-hydroxylase, indicating that inactive D3 might be converted to its active form in the H9N2-infected lungs. Furthermore, a significant increase was also observed in the VDR mRNA and protein levels, suggesting enhanced responsiveness of the lung tissues to 1, 25(OH)2D3 post H9N2 infection. In addition, daily 25(OH)D3 injection from day 2-14 post-infection did not affect the clinical signs, virus replication and cytokine (IL-1ß and TNF-α) production in the lungs of the infected mice. Given that the biological effects of D3 rely on its activation, and the binding of 1, 25(OH)2D3 to VDR in specific tissues, our findings provide novel insights into the possible role of vitamin D in the development and progression of influenza.

The COVID-19 pandemic reduces trust behavior.

We conduct an online experiment before and after the outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic in China with four sampling waves and test the effect of COVID-19 pandemic on trust behavior. We find that COVID-19 pandemic reduces trust behavior. Belief in others' trustworthiness is one potential mechanism underlying the effect of COVID-19 pandemic on trust behavior.

Corrigendum: Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation of the Right Lateral Prefrontal Cortex Changes a priori Normative Beliefs in Voluntary Cooperation.

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.3389/fnins.2018.00606.].

Transcranial stimulation over right inferior frontal gyrus increases the weight given to private information during sequential decision-making.

Decision makers often follow other similarly situated people in making decisions, creating a sequential decision-making context. Although rational behavior is often to make the same choice as previous decision makers, which can result in an information cascade, people may assign inappropriately higher weight to their own private information and discount public information about predecessors' choices. Recent findings suggest that overweighting private information may be associated with increased activities in the inferior frontal gyrus (IFG). In the present study, we employed transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) and developed a computational model to examine the causal relationship between right IFG (rIFG) and overweighting private information. Specifically, we applied three types of tDCS over rIFG while participants were completing a sequential decision-making task. Our results showed that anodal stimulation significantly increased the weight given to private information and decreased the response time in making a decision when private information conflicted with public information, but cathodal stimulation did not have such impacts. Importantly, the effect of anodal stimulation was significant in some conditions when information conflict or task difficulty reached a threshold that might trigger cognitive control-related processes. Our findings revealed the important role of rIFG in trade-off between considering private and public information during sequential decision-making.

TLR4 deficiency reduces pulmonary resistance to Streptococcus pneumoniae in gut microbiota-disrupted mice.

Streptococcus pneumoniae is a clinically important pathogen responsible for significant morbidity and mortality worldwide. Disruption of the host gut microbiota by antibiotics reduces the pulmonary resistance to S. pneumoniae. The aim of our study was to determine the potential role of TLR4 in the reduced pulmonary resistance to S. pneumoniae following gut microbiota disruption. Wild-type and TLR4-deficient mice were given broad-spectrum antibiotics for 3 weeks by oral gavage to disrupt the gut microbiota, and subsequently inoculated intra-nasally with S. pneumoniae. The extent of the decline in pulmonary resistance in both animal groups was evaluated in terms of the overall survival and pulmonary bacterial clearance. Both survival and pulmonary clearance of S. pneumoniae were lower in the TLR4-deficient mice with disrupted gut microbiota, compared to their intestinally healthy counterparts after pneumococcal infection. However, the degree of decline was much lower in the TLR4-deficient mice compared to the wild-type mice. Our findings indicate that impaired TLR4 function might be the basis of the reduced pulmonary resistance to S. pneumoniae caused by gut microbiota disruption.

Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation of the Right Lateral Prefrontal Cortex Changes a priori Normative Beliefs in Voluntary Cooperation.

A priori normative beliefs, the precondition of social norm compliance that reflects culture and values, are considered unique to human social behavior. Previous studies related to the ultimatum game revealed that right lateral prefrontal cortex (rLPFC) has no stimulation effects on normative beliefs. However, no research has focused on the effects of a priori belief on the rLPFC in voluntary cooperation attached to the public good (PG) game. In this study, we used a linear asymmetric PG to confirm the influence of the rLPFC on a priori normative beliefs without threats of external punishment through transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS). Participants engaged via computer terminals in groups of four (i.e., two high-endowment players with 35G$ and two low-endowment players with 23G$). They were anonymous and had no communication during the entire process. They were randomly assigned to receive 15 min of either anodal, cathodal, or sham stimulation and then asked to answer questions concerning a priori normative beliefs (norm.belief and pg.belief). Results suggested that anodal/cathodal tDCS significantly (P < 0.001) shifted the participants' a priori normative beliefs in opposite directions compared to the shift in the sham group. In addition, different identities exhibited varying degrees of change (28.80-54.43%). These outcomes provide neural evidence of the rLPFC mechanism's effect on the normative beliefs in voluntary cooperation based on the PG framework.

Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation Altered Voluntary Cooperative Norms Compliance Under Equal Decision-Making Power.

Social norms play an essential role in human interactions and the development of the evolution of human history. Extensive studies corroborate that compliance with social norms typically requires a punishment threat as almost always specific individuals have self-interests that tempt them to violate the norm. Neural imaging studies demonstrate that lateral orbitofrontal cortex (LOFC) and right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (rDLPFC) are activated when individuals decide to increase social norm compliance when punishment is possible. Moreover, rDLPFC is affirmed to be involved in social norm compliance with or without external punishment threats in a series of transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) research. However, these neuroscience studies are based on the ultimatum game (UG) in which the decision-making power between the proposer and the responder is unequal, and no studies support the causal relationship between rDLPFC and voluntary cooperative norms compliance among the equal decision-making power of subjects. Whether modulating the excitability of rDLPFC, which plays a role in norm compliance, alters the extent of compliance with voluntary cooperative norms under equal decision-making power and how norms from different types with asymmetric endowment influence compliance remain unknown. The present study aimed to provide evidence of a direct link between the neural and behavioral results through the application of tDCS over rDLPFC on compliance with voluntary cooperative norms under equal decision-making power. Results verified that activating rDLPFC altered voluntary cooperative norms compliance of all our participants and significant effect over different initial endowments was observed. The role of norm.own and norm.other in compliance was changed in the anodal treatment. Findings validate that enhancing the excitability of the rDLPFC using tDCS leads to high compliance in voluntary cooperation and this effect is specific to equal decision-making power rather than unequal decision-making power.

Electrophysiological correlates of integrating choice and response time during sequential decision making.

Response times (RTs) can provide valuable information about a person's underlying decision processes. To investigate electrophysiological correlates of integrating choice and RTs, ERPs elicited by belief updating in long response times condition (Long-RTs) were compared with those in short response times condition (Short-RTs). In both kinds of conditions, three fictitious persons were arranged in random order (P1, P2, P3) and predicted uncertain state of world. P3 took a long time in Long-RTs condition. In Short-RTs condition P3 rapidly made decisions. Participants' task was to infer P3's private signal after observing three fictitious persons' same choice and P3's RTs. ERP results revealed that frontal P200 and N200 distinguished between the two conditions. P200 showed a higher amplitude in Short-RTs condition and might represent early stage valuations of task-relevant perceptual information. N200 showed a more negative amplitude in Long-RTs condition and might reflect conflict between participants' prior knowledge about P3's private signal and P3's long RTs. Our study demonstrates that RTs is an indicator of choice and identifies the temporal process of integrating choice and response time during sequential decision making.

Fourth-Party Evaluation of Third-Party Pro-social Help and Punishment: An ERP Study.

Pro-social behaviors have been adequately studied by neuroscientists. However, few neural studies have focused on the social evaluation of pro-social behaviors, and none has compared the neural correlates of different pro-social decision evaluations. By fourth-party evaluation of third-party punishment/help dictator game paradigm, we explored the third-party pro-social behaviors and derived feedback-related negativity (FRN) from the electroencephalogram. Different from previous event-related potentials (ERP) studies, we simultaneously focused on two different third-party pro-social behaviors, which were called third-party help and third-party punishment. For the first time, we compared the different neural processes of fourth-party evaluation on third-party help and punishment. Behavioral results showed that fourth-party bystanders appreciated the help behavior of the third party even more than the punishment behavior. ERP results revealed that fourth-party bystanders' FRN amplitudes were modulated by the third-party behaviors. Under the assignment condition (70:30) with help/punishment magnitude 45 and (90:10) with magnitude 80, the third-party help elicited a larger FRN than third-party punishment; whereas under the condition (90:10) with help/punishment magnitude 45, the difference between FRN amplitudes disappeared. These results indicated that fourth-party bystanders ultimately agreed more with helpful third parties; however, after they witnessed the norm violation, they expected the third parties to punish the norm violators immediately. This phenomenon appears only when the third-party actors can achieve justice between norm violators and victims.

Controlled Hydrothermal Synthesis, Optical and Magnetic Properties of Monodisperse Leaf-Like CeO2 Nanosheets.

The monodisperse leaf-like CeO2 nanosheets of about 40 nm in thickness have been successfully synthesized by a simple hydrothermal route. SEM, XRD, FT-IR, TG-DSC, XPS, Raman scattering, Photoluminescence (PL) spectra and M-H curves were employed to characterize the samples. The results showed that all the CeO2 samples had a cubic fluorite structure and there are Ce3+ ions and oxygen vacancies in the surface of samples. Based on the SEM patterns, a clear morphology transformation from leaf-like to heart-shaped, and then to triangular prism-like structure was observed. The magnetic and photoluminescence measurements displayed that all the samples have excellent ferromagnetism and optical properties at room temperature and the ferromagnetism and optical properties increase along with the rise of NH4HCO3 concentration, which can be reasonably explained for the affects of the morphology of samples, the concentration of oxygen vacancies and Ce3+ ions.

Effect of Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation of the Medial Prefrontal Cortex on the Gratitude of Individuals with Heterogeneous Ability in an Experimental Labor Market.

Gratitude is an important aspect of human sociality, which benefits mental health and interpersonal relationships. Thus, elucidating the neural mechanism of gratitude, which is only now beginning to be investigated, is important. To this end, this study specifies the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) involved in the gratitude of heterogeneous individuals using the transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) technique. Previous neural studies have shown the involvement of mPFC in social cognition and value evaluation, which are closely related to gratitude. However, the causal relationship between this neural area and gratitude has not been fully examined and the effect of individual social heterogeneity has been ignored. Meanwhile, behavioral economics studies have proposed that the abilities of employees in the labor market would affect their gratitude and emotional response. Thus, we designed an experiment based on gift exchange game to investigate the relationship between mPFC and gratitude of heterogeneous employees. Before the experiment, participants were asked to perform self-cognition of their abilities through an appropriately difficult task. We then used the effort of participants to imply their gratitude and analyzed the effort levels of employees with different abilities under anodal, cathodal, and sham stimulations. The results showed that employees under anodal stimulation were significantly likely to increase their effort than those under sham stimulation, and employees under cathodal stimulation ranked at the bottom of the list. Moreover, the effort levels of low-ability employees were obviously higher than those of high-ability employees. The cathodal stimulation of mPFC significantly reduced the effort levels of low-ability employees, whereas its anodal tDCS stimulation increased the effort levels of high-ability employees. These outcomes verify the relationship between mPFC and gratitude using tDCS and provided one of the first instances of neural evidence for the incentive mechanism design in the labor market to a certain extent.