Does empathy promote helping by activating altruistic motivation or concern about social evaluation? A direct replication of Fultz et al. (1986).

When people experience empathy for a needy stranger, efforts to help are often not far behind. But does empathy actually prosocial behavior? And if so, does it activate genuine concern or more self-interested motivations? To rule out the alternative hypothesis that empathy motivates prosocial behavior by generating fear of social disapproval for acting selfishly, Fultz et al. (1986) manipulated empathy for a lonely stranger using perspective-taking instructions; they also manipulated whether subjects believed their decision to help would remain anonymous.

Optimising rabies vaccination of dogs in India.

Dog vaccination is the key to controlling rabies in human populations. However, in countries like India, with large free-roaming dog populations, vaccination strategies that rely only on parenteral vaccines are unlikely to be either feasible or successful. Oral rabies vaccines could be used to reach these dogs.

Intracranial venous stenting for idiopathic intracranial hypertension.

Introduction: There is increasing evidence in the literature to support venous sinus stenting in patients with idiopathic intracranial hypertension who fail first-line therapy. Venous sinus stenting is a safe and successful technique compared with cerebrospinal fluid diversion procedures. This study examines the clinical outcomes of patients post intracranial venous stenting for intracranial hypertension across three tertiary hospitals in Western Australia.

A meta-analytic investigation of problem gambling and self-harm: A causal inference perspective.

Objective: Problem gambling may be an underappreciated treatment target for reducing self-harm. Multivariate studies examining the relationship between problem gambling and self-harm have returned inconsistent results, perhaps due to insufficient power or differences in study quality.

Method: We conducted a series of meta-analyses examining the effect of problem gambling on self-harm outcomes of varying severity.

Using "Markers of Harm" to Track Risky Gambling in Two Cohorts of Online Sports Bettors.

Online gambling poses novel risks for problem gambling, but also unique opportunities to detect and intervene with at-risk users. A consortium of gambling companies recently committed to using nine behavioral "Markers of Harm'' that can be calculated with online user data to estimate risk for gambling-related harm. The current study evaluates these markers in two independent samples of sports bettors, collected ten years apart.

Mechanical thrombectomy is efficacious in patients with pre-stroke moderate disability.

Introduction: Patients with ischaemic stroke due to large vessel occlusion (LVO) can be treated successfully with mechanical thrombectomy (MT) and/or intravenous thrombolysis. In the landmark trials, MT was only performed for those with no functional disability prior to stroke (mRS 0-2). There are limited data available regarding clinical outcomes for patients with pre-stroke moderate disability (mRS ≥ 3).

Responsible product design to mitigate excessive gambling: A scoping review and z-curve analysis of replicability.

Objectives: Systematic mapping of evaluations of tools and interventions that are intended to mitigate risks for gambling harm.

Design: Scoping Review and z-curve analysis (which estimates the average replicability of a body of literature).

Search Strategy: We searched 7 databases.

Development and validation of a high-parameter mass cytometry workflow to decipher immunomodulatory changes in celiac disease.

The advent of time-of-flight mass cytometry (CyTOF) has enabled high dimensional and unbiased examination of the immune system to simultaneous interrogate a multitude of parameters and gain a better understanding of immunologic data from clinical trial samples. Here we describe the development and validation of a 33-marker mass cytometry workflow for measuring gastrointestinal (GI) trafficking peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) in patients with celiac disease (CeD). This panel builds upon identification of well-characterized immune cells and expands to include markers modulated in response to gluten challenge in patients with CeD.

Transradial versus transfemoral access for anterior circulation mechanical thrombectomy: analysis of 375 consecutive cases.

Objective: To compare transradial artery access (TRA) to the gold standard of transfemoral artery access (TFA) in mechanical thrombectomy (MT) for stroke caused by anterior circulation large vessel occlusion.

Methods: The clinical outcomes, procedural speed, angiographic efficacy and safety of both techniques were analysed in 375 consecutive cases over an 18-month period in a high volume statewide neurointerventional service.

Results: There was no significant difference in patient characteristics, stroke parameters, imaging techniques or intracranial techniques.

Evaluating Responses to Gluten Challenge: A Randomized, Double-Blind, 2-Dose Gluten Challenge Trial.

Background & Aims: Gluten challenge is used to diagnose celiac disease (CeD) and for clinical research. Sustained gluten exposure reliably induces histologic changes but is burdensome. We investigated the relative abilities of multiple biomarkers to assess disease activity induced by 2 gluten doses, and aimed to identify biomarkers to supplement or replace histology.

First line transradial access for posterior circulation stroke intervention; initial 12-month experience at a high volume thrombectomy center.

Background: The Neurointerventional Surgery Standards and Guidelines Committee has advocated the use of transradial access in the setting of posterior circulation stroke intervention, however there is a paucity of published data on this approach. The purpose of this study is to present 12-months of prospectively collected data from a high volume thrombectomy center following the adoption of a first line transradial approach for posterior circulation stroke intervention.

Methods: A range of data on patient characteristics, procedural metrics, complications and outcomes was prospectively collected between August 2018 - August 2019 following the adoption of first line transradial access for posterior circulation stroke intervention at a high volume thrombectomy center.

Glasgow Coma Scale on Presentation Predicts Outcome in Endovascular Treatment for Acute Posterior Large-Vessel Occlusion.

Use of mechanical thrombectomy for stroke has increased since the publication of trials describing outcome improvement when used in the anterior circulation. These results, however, cannot be directly translated to the posterior circulation. While a high NIHSS score has demonstrated an association with poor outcomes in posterior stroke, the NIHSS is weighted toward hemispheric disease, and complex scores potentially delay definitive imaging diagnosis.

Is Empathy the Default Response to Suffering? A Meta-Analytic Evaluation of Perspective Taking's Effect on Empathic Concern.

We conducted a series of meta-analytic tests on experiments in which participants read perspective-taking instructions-that is, written instructions to imagine a distressed persons' point of view ("imagine-self" and "imagine-other" instructions), or to inhibit such actions ("remain-objective" instructions)-and afterwards reported how much empathic concern they experienced upon learning about the distressed person. If people spontaneously empathize with others, then participants who receive remain-objective instructions should report less empathic concern than do participants in a "no-instructions" control condition; if people can deliberately increase how much empathic concern they experience, then imagine-self and imagine-other instructions should increase empathic concern relative to not receiving any instructions. Random-effects models revealed that remain-objective instructions reduced empathic concern, but "imagine" instructions did not significantly increase it.

Moral reasoning performance determines epistemic peerdom.

We offer a friendly criticism of May's fantastic book on moral reasoning: It is overly charitable to the argument that moral disagreement undermines moral knowledge. To highlight the role that reasoning quality plays in moral judgments, we review literature that he did not mention showing that individual differences in intelligence and cognitive reflection explain much of moral disagreement. The burden is on skeptics of moral knowledge to show that moral disagreement arises from non-rational origins.

Air retrieval for clot retrieval; time-metrics and outcomes of stroke patients from rural and remote regions air-transported for mechanical thrombectomy at a state stroke unit.

Background: Providing thrombectomy services to rural or remote regions with small, dispersed populations presents a particular challenge. Sustaining local thrombectomy services is not viable given the low throughput of cases, therefore large vessel occlusion (LVO) stroke patients require emergent transfer, often by air, to the closest high volume urban thrombectomy unit. The aim of this paper is to present logistical, time-metric data and outcome data on LVO stroke patients that have been aeromedically retrieved for thrombectomy from the vast, 2,500,000-km rural catchment of the Western Australian state thrombectomy unit.

Experience with anonymous interactions reduces intuitive cooperation.

The Social Heuristics Hypothesis claims that cooperation is intuitive because it is positively reinforced in everyday life, where behaviour typically has reputational consequences. Consequently, participants will cooperate in anonymous laboratory settings unless they either reflect on the one-shot nature of the interaction or learn through experience with such settings that cooperation does not promote self-interest. Experiments reveal that cognitive-processing manipulations (which increase reliance on either intuition or deliberation) indeed affect cooperation, but may also introduce confounds.

Transvenous coil embolization with intra-operative cone beam CT assistance in the treatment of hypoglossal canal dural arteriovenous fistulae.

Background: Hypoglossal canal dural arteriovenous fistulae (HC-dAVF) are a rare subtype of skull base fistulae involving the anterior condylar confluence or anterior condular vein within the hypoglossal canal. Transvenous coil embolization is a preferred treatment strategy, however delineation of fistula angio-architecture during workup and localization of microcatheter tip during embolization remain challenging on planar DSA. For this reason, our group have utilized intra-operative cone beam CT (CBCT) and selective cone beam CT angiography (sCBCTA) as adjuncts to planar DSA during workup and treatment.

Digital altruists: Resolving key questions about the empathy-altruism hypothesis in an Internet sample.

Researchers have identified the capacity to take the perspective of others as a precursor to empathy-induced altruistic motivation. Consequently, investigators frequently use so-called perspective-taking instructions to manipulate empathic concern. However, most experiments using perspective-taking instructions have had modest sample sizes, undermining confidence in the replicability of results.