Emotional face recognition, empathic trait (BEES), and cortical contribution in response to positive and negative cues. The effect of rTMS on dorsal medial prefrontal cortex

The present study investigated the relationship between three different measures related to the affective empathy: facial expression detection in response to different emotional patterns (positive vs. negative), personal response to empathic scale [Balanced Emotional Empathy Scale (BEES)], and dorsal medial prefrontal cortex (dMPFC) contribution to mediate the facial detection task. Nineteen subjects took part in the study and they were required to recognize facial expression of emotions, after having empathized with these emotional cues. Repeated Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (rTMS) method was used in the present research in order to produce a temporary virtual disruption of dMPFC activity. dMPFC disruption induced a worse performance, especially in response to negative expressions (i.e. anger and fear). High-BEES subjects paid a higher cost after frontal brain perturbation: they showed to be unable to correctly detect facial expressions more than low-BEES. Moreover, a “negative valence effect” was observed only for high-BEES, and it was probably related with their higher impairment to recognize negative more than positive expressions. dMPFC was found to support emotional facial expression recognition in an empathic condition, with a specific increased responsiveness for negative-valenced faces. The contribution of this research was discussed to explain the mechanisms underlying affective empathy based on rTMS application.     

How the mirror-image pattern specified by a janus mutation of Tetrahymena thermophila comes to expression

The initial changes of cell-surface organization that occurred as the recessive janAl (janus) mutation of Tetrahymena thermophila first became expressed were elucidated in a special mating scheme in which old macronuclei homozygous for janA⁺ were synchronously replaced by new macronuclei homozygous for janAl. During this period of onset of expression, the number, regularity, and asymmetry of the ciliary rows remained unchanged. New normal (primary) oral apparatuses (OAs) continued to be formed posterior to old OAs, as in normal cells. At about four fissions after conjugation, abnormal (secondary) OAs with a partial reversal of asymmetry began to appear nearly opposite to the primary OAs, close to but not at the eventual circumferential position of janAl secondary OAs. The array of contractile vacuole pores (CVPs), normally located adjacent to two ciliary rows centered near 22% of the cell circumference to the righ of the primary oral meridian, underwent a two-step transformation: first, the number of adjacent ciliary rows bearing CVPs increased to 3, 4, and sometimes 5, then “skipped” rows appeared within this broadened CVP-arc to split the single set of CVPs into two separated subsets. The CVP transformations occurred gradually and progressively. They began prior to the expression of secondary OAs but accelerated as secondary OAs appeared. As the CVP are became broader, its midpoint shifted somewhat to the right, away from the primary oral meridian, but ended up close to halfway between the primary and secondary oral meridians. The data provide a better fit to an intercalation model than to an alternative double gradient model, suggesting that the janAl mutation alters the large-scale organization of positional values by preventing the expression of a subset of these values and thus provoking reverse-intercalation of the remainder.