Callousness and meanness traits are associated with increased N2 amplitude in a community sample of adolescents and adults.

The lack of consistent findings in the research field of psychopathy unveils the heterogeneity of this personality structure and, therefore, a dissociation of its phenotypic components is a promising venue to conciliate paradoxical results. The current study aims to assess the dissociable effects of psychopathic traits on N2 and P3 modulation, while analyzing the stability of some endophenotypic processes across development. A sample of adolescents (n = 33) and adults (n = 31) completed, respectively, the Youth Psychopathy Inventory and the Triarchic Psychopathy Measure and performed the same Go/No-Go task during an EEG recording. For adolescents, the unemotionality and remorselessness subdimensions of the callous-unemotional (CU) factor predicted, respectively, reduced N2 and P3 amplitudes. This suggests impaired inhibitory control in both subdimensions of the broad CU factor. However, the callousness subdimension of the CU factor predicted increased N2 amplitude. This pattern of findings was also observed for meanness in adults, which leads to the hypothesis that callousness traits may be a specific precursor of meanness.

The effect of aging on the (mis)perception of intentionality - an ERP study.

Despite the accumulated knowledge on moral decision-making in the early stages of development, empirical evidence is still limited in the old-aged adults. The current study contributes to unveil the neural correlates of judgments of moral transgressions as a function of aging, by examining the temporal dynamics of neural activation elicited by intentional and accidental harmful actions in three groups of healthy participants: young adults (18-35), adults (40-55), and older adults (60-75). Older adults were slower and less accurate in rating intentionality, compared to the younger groups. In ERP analysis, the older group showed increased P2 amplitude, which was predicted by poorer performance on neuropsychological tests. Reduced amplitudes were found on critical ERP components to moral cognition (N2 and LPP), namely while processing intentional harmful scenarios. Older adults seem to allocate more attentional resources (P2) to the task, probably to compensate the age-related decline in executive functioning, while younger groups show a pronounced negativity while detecting harm (N2) and increased neural activation to encode the intentions behind the acts (LPP).

Age-related decline in emotional perspective-taking: Its effect on the late positive potential.

Aging is associated with changes in cognitive and affective functioning, which likely shape older adults' social cognition. As the neural and psychological mechanisms underlying age differences in social abilities remain poorly understood, the present study aims to extend the research in this field. To this purpose, younger (n = 30; Mage = 26.6), middle-aged (n = 30; Mage = 48.4), and older adults (n = 29; Mage = 64.5) performed a task designed to assess affective perspective-taking, during an EEG recording. In this task, participants decided whether a target facial expression of emotion (FEE) was congruent or incongruent with that of a masked intervener of a previous scenario, which portrayed a neutral or an emotional scene. Older adults showed worse performance in comparison to the other groups. Regarding electrophysiological results, while younger and middle-aged adults showed higher late positive potentials (LPPs) after FEEs congruent with previous scenarios than after incongruent FEEs, older adults had similar amplitudes after both. This insensitivity of older adults' LPPs in differentiating congruent from incongruent emotional context-target FEE may be related to their difficulty in generating information about others' inner states and using that information in social interactions.

Age-related changes in social decision-making: An electrophysiological analysis of unfairness evaluation in the Ultimatum Game.

This study examines age-related differences in behavioral and neural responses to unfairness. Our sample was composed of younger, middle-aged, and older adults, who performed the Ultimatum Game in the proposer role, and in the respondent role during an EEG recording. We administered neurocognitive tests to identify whether patterns in decision-making are associated with age-related changes in cognition. Despite the worse performance in measures of executive functioning, older adults had the best economic strategy by accepting more unfair offers than younger and middle-aged adults. Regarding electrophysiological results, while younger adults showed higher medial frontal negativity (MFN) amplitudes after unfair than after fair offers, middle-aged and older adults had similar amplitudes after both conditions. Our results suggest that aging may be accompanied by an insensitivity to unfairness, which may underlie their higher rates of unfair offers acceptance.

Clinical experience of laboratory follow-up with noninvasive prenatal testing using cell-free DNA and positive microdeletion results in 349 cases.

OBJECTIVE: Screening via noninvasive prenatal testing (NIPT) involving the analysis of cell-free DNA (cfDNA) from plasma has become readily available to screen for chromosomal and DNA aberrations through maternal blood. This report reviews a laboratory's experience with follow-up of positive NIPT screens for microdeletions. METHODS: Patients that were screened positive by NIPT for a microdeletion involving 1p, 4p, 5p, 15q, or 22q who underwent diagnostic studies by either chorionic villus sampling or amniocentesis were evaluated. RESULTS: The overall positive predictive value for 349 patients was 9.2%. When a microdeletion was confirmed, 39.3% of the cases had additional abnormal microarray findings. Unrelated abnormal microarray findings were detected in 11.8% of the patients in whom the screen positive microdeletion was not confirmed. Stretches of homozygosity in the microdeletion were frequently associated with a false positive cfDNA microdeletion result. CONCLUSIONS: Overall, this report reveals that while cfDNA analysis will screen for microdeletions, the positive predictive value is low; in our series it is 9.2%. Therefore, the patient should be counseled accordingly. Confirmatory diagnostic microarray studies are imperative because of the high percentage of false positives and the frequent additional abnormalities not delineated by cfDNA analysis.

Expression of the Bs2 pepper gene confers resistance to bacterial spot disease in tomato.

The Bs2 resistance gene of pepper specifically recognizes and confers resistance to strains of Xanthomonas campestris pv. vesicatoria that contain the corresponding bacterial avirulence gene, avrBs2. The involvement of avrBs2 in pathogen fitness and its prevalence in many X. campestris pathovars suggests that the Bs2 gene may be durable in the field and provide resistance when introduced into other plant species. Employing a positional cloning strategy, the Bs2 locus was isolated and the gene was identified by coexpression with avrBs2 in an Agrobacterium-mediated transient assay. A single candidate gene, predicted to encode motifs characteristic of the nucleotide binding site-leucine-rich repeat class of resistance genes, was identified. This gene specifically controlled the hypersensitive response when transiently expressed in susceptible pepper and tomato lines and in a nonhost species, Nicotiana benthamiana, and was designated as Bs2. Functional expression of Bs2 in stable transgenic tomatoes supports its use as a source of resistance in other Solanaceous plant species.