Background: Rhinoconjunctivitis phenotypes are conventionally described based on symptom severity, duration and seasonality and aeroallergen sensitization. It is not known whether these phenotypes fully reflect the patterns of symptoms seen at a population level.
Objective: To identify phenotypes of rhinoconjunctivitis based on symptom intensity and seasonality using an unbiased approach and to compare their characteristics.
Hair steroid analysis is increasingly recognized for its ability to capture cumulative hormone secretion, thought to reflect an individual's response to long-term environmental conditions. Despite its growing use, the influence of single, isolated events on hair steroid concentrations remains underexplored. Our study therefore examined the effects of a single-dose transdermal testosterone administration (150 mg) and acute laboratory stress induction on hair testosterone and cortisol levels in a randomized, between-subject, placebo-controlled, and double-blind design.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFOur affective states can influence whether we help others and after helping we often experience improved affect. One important factor determining whether we help, is the amount of effort involved. Using an ecological momentary assessment approach across two measurement bursts (N = 803; N = 303), we investigated the affective antecedents and consequences of everyday helping in terms of participants' self-reported momentary stress and mood valence, with a specific focus on the perceived amount of effort involved.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe terminology used in discussions on mental state attribution is extensive and lacks consistency. In the current paper, experts from various disciplines collaborate to introduce a shared set of concepts and make recommendations regarding future use.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Psychotic experiences are thought to emerge from various interrelated patterns of disrupted belief updating, such as overestimating the reliability of sensory information and misjudging task volatility, yet these substrates have never been jointly addressed under one computational framework, and it is not clear to what degree they reflect trait-like computational patterns.
Methods: We introduce a novel hierarchical Bayesian model that describes how individuals simultaneously update their beliefs about the task volatility and noise in observation. We applied this model to data from a modified predictive inference task in a test-retest study with healthy volunteers (N = 45, 4 sessions) and examined the relationship between model parameters and schizotypal traits in a larger online sample (N = 437) and in a cohort of patients with schizophrenia (N = 100).
Background: Viral wheezing is an important risk factor for asthma, which comprises several respiratory phenotypes. We sought to understand if the etiology of early-life wheezing illnesses relates to childhood respiratory and asthma phenotypes.
Methods: Data were collected prospectively on 429 children in the Urban Environment and Childhood Asthma (URECA) birth cohort study through age 10 years.
Many everyday decisions, including those concerning our health, finances and the environment, involve choosing between a smaller but imminent reward (e.g., €20 now) and a later but larger reward (e.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFNeurosci Biobehav Rev
August 2024
Accounts of shared representations posit that the experience of pain and pain empathy rely on similar neural mechanisms. Experimental research employing novel analytical and methodological approaches has made significant advances in both the identification and targeted manipulation of such shared experiences and their neural underpinnings. This revealed that painful experiences can be shared on different representational levels, from pain-specific to domain-general features, such as negative affect and its regulation.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFNeurosci Biobehav Rev
July 2024
Dogs and humans have lived together for thousands of years and share many analogous socio-cognitive skills. Dog neuroimaging now provides insight into the neural bases of these shared social abilities. Here, we summarize key findings from dog fMRI identifying neocortical brain areas implicated in visual social cognition, such as face, body, and emotion perception, as well as action observation in dogs.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFDogs are increasingly used as a model for neuroscience due to their ability to undergo functional MRI fully awake and unrestrained, after extensive behavioral training. Still, we know rather little about dogs' basic functional neuroanatomy, including how basic perceptual and motor functions are localized in their brains. This is a major shortcoming in interpreting activations obtained in dog fMRI.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe ability to make sense of and predict others' actions is foundational for many socio-cognitive abilities. Dogs (Canis familiaris) constitute interesting comparative models for the study of action perception due to their marked sensitivity to human actions. We tested companion dogs (N = 21) in two screen-based eye-tracking experiments, adopting a task previously used with human infants and apes, to assess which aspects of an agent's action dogs consider relevant to the agent's underlying intentions.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIndividuals with psychopathic personality traits are generally thought to have difficulties in processing and experiencing emotions. These difficulties could also translate to emotionally charged social situations such as social exclusion. Being socially excluded is often experienced as stressful and unpleasant, potentially even leading to selfish or aggressive behavior-both of which are linked to certain aspects of psychopathy.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFFinding ways to investigate false belief understanding nonverbally is not just important for preverbal children but also is the only way to assess theory of mind (ToM)-like abilities in nonhuman animals. In this preregistered study, we adapted the design from a previous study on pet dogs to investigate false belief understanding in children and to compare it with belief understanding of those previously tested dogs. A total of 32 preschool children (aged 5-6 years) saw the displacement of a reward and obtained nonverbal cueing of the empty container from an adult communicator holding either a true or false belief.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe amygdala is a heterogeneous network of subcortical nuclei with central importance in cognitive and clinical neuroscience. Various experimental designs in human psychology and animal model research have mapped multiple conceptual frameworks (e.g.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFInfluential accounts claim that violent video games (VVGs) decrease players' emotional empathy by desensitizing them to both virtual and real-life violence. However, scientific evidence for this claim is inconclusive and controversially debated. To assess the causal effect of VVGs on the behavioral and neural correlates of empathy and emotional reactivity to violence, we conducted a prospective experimental study using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPrevious research has demonstrated a link between the administration of analgesic drugs and the reduction of empathy levels in humans. This apparent blunting effect of pain medication has been explained through shared neural mechanisms for the first-hand and the empathic experience of pain (simulation theory). Considering that analgesics are among the most consumed drugs in the world and the ability to empathize with others is fundamental to human social interactions, the aim of the present study was to investigate whether the typical day-to-day analgesic consumption rate in Austria and Germany is associated with a reduction in empathy and prosocial behavior.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIntroduction: Placebo responsiveness is highly variable across individuals. In the domain of pain, it may range from pronounced hypoalgesia to no response at all. Which factors predict such variation awaits clarification, as the available literature is characterized by mixed and inconclusive results.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe ability to predict others' actions is one of the main pillars of social cognition. We investigated the processes underlying this ability by pitting motor representations of the observed movements against visual familiarity. In two pre-registered eye-tracking experiments, we measured the gaze arrival times of 16 dogs () who observed videos of a human or a conspecific executing the same goal-directed actions.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe ability to learn about other people is crucial for human social functioning. Dopamine has been proposed to regulate the precision of beliefs, but direct behavioural evidence of this is lacking. In this study, we investigate how a high dose of the D2/D3 dopamine receptor antagonist sulpiride impacts learning about other people's prosocial attitudes in a repeated Trust game.
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