I Want What She’s Having

A variety of non-human females do not select male partners independently. Instead they favor males having previous associations with other females, a phenomenon known as mate copying. This paper investigates whether humans also exhibit mate copying and whether consistent positive information about a man’s mate value, and a woman’s age and self-perceived mate value (SPMV), influence her tendency to copy the mate choices of others. Female university students (N?=?123) rated the desirability of photographed men pictured alone or with one, two, or five women represented by silhouettes. In accordance with the visual arrays, men were described as currently in a romantic relationship; having previously been in one, two, or five relationships; or not having had a romantic relationship in the past 4 years. Women generally rated men pictured with one or two previous partners as more desirable than those with none. Men depicted with five previous partners, however, were found to be less desirable. Younger, presumably less experienced women had a greater tendency to mate copy compared with older women, but high SPMV did not predict greater levels of mate copying. The findings reaffirmed and expanded those suggesting that women do not make mate choices independently.     

Partial sequencing of Reissner’s fiber glycoprotein I (RF-Gly I)

The bulk of the secretion of the subcommissural organ is formed by glycoproteins that appear to be derived from two precursor forms of 540 and 320 kDa. Upon release into the ventricle, these glycoproteins aggregate to form Reissner’s fiber. We report the isolation of three cDNA clones from a cDNA library prepared from bovine subcommissural organ RNA, by using an anti-Reissner’s fiber serum for immunoscreening. Inserts of 0.7, 1.2, and 2.5 kb were amplified by the polymerase chain reaction, subcloned into pUC18 vector, and sequenced. Although restriction mapping of the three inserts initially suggested that all of them were derived from the same mRNA, sequence analysis showed that a short non-homologous region was present in the 0.7-kb insert when compared with the 1.2-kb and 2.5-kb inserts, suggesting that they corresponded to two different, although highly homologous, mRNAs. Northern analyses showed a single mRNA species of approximately 9.5 kb present in the subcommissural organ and missing in the choroid plexus, brain cortex, and liver. In situ hybridization confirmed that the expression of the RNA was restricted to cells of the bovine subcommissural organ. Polyclonal antibodies raised against a synthetic peptide, whose amino-acid sequence was deduced from the 2.5-kb cDNA, reacted specifically with the bovine and rat subcommissural organ-Reissner’s fiber complex. In immunoblots of bovine subcommissural organ, this antibody revealed the precursor 540-kDa form and its putative processed form of 450 kDa. It is concluded that the cloned cDNA encodes for the major constitutive glycoprotein of Reissner’s fiber, here designated as RF-Gly I. The sequenced region of RF-Gly I displays a high degree of homology with some regions of the von Willebrand factor and certain mucins; it also displays two motifs homologous with repeats present in proteins of the spondin family and other proteins. A core sequence of the RF-Gly I repeats suggests that this molecule displays protein-binding properties.     

ACE I/D polymorphism in Alzheimer’s disease

Angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE) has been reported to show altered activity in patients with neurological diseases. The recent studies found that a 287 bp insertion/deletion (I/D) polymorphism of the ACE gene may be associated with susceptibility to Alzheimer’s disease (AD) but the results have been heterogenous between studies in Europe. In the present study we examined for the first time the association of ACE I/D polymorphism along with APOE genotype in 70 sporadic AD and 126 control subjects in Slovak Caucasians (Central Europe). An increased risk for AD was observed in subjects with at least one APOE*E4 allele (OR=3.99, 95% CI=1.97–8.08). No significant differences for the genotype distribution or the allele frequency were revealed comparing controls and patients for ACE gene. Gene-gene interaction analysis showed increase of the risk to develop AD in subjects carrying both the ACE DD genotype and the APOE*E4 allele (OR=10.32, 95% C.I. 2.67–39.81).     

Huntington’s Disease and Group I Metabotropic Glutamate Receptors

Huntington’s disease (HD) is an autosomal dominant neurodegenerative disorder characterized by involuntary body movement, cognitive impairment and psychiatric disturbance. A polyglutamine expansion in the amino-terminal region of the huntingtin (htt) protein is the genetic cause of HD. Htt protein interacts with a wide variety of proteins, and htt mutation causes cell signaling alterations in various neurotransmitter systems, including dopaminergic, glutamatergic, and cannabinoid systems, as well as trophic factor systems. This review will overview recent findings concerning htt-promoted alterations in cell signaling that involve different neurotransmitters and trophic factor systems, especially involving mGluR1/5, as glutamate plays a crucial role in neuronal cell death. The neuronal cell death that takes place in the striatum and cortex of HD patients is the most important factor underlying HD progression. Metabotropic glutamate receptors (mGluR1 and mGluR5) have a very controversial role in neuronal cell death and it is not clear whether mGluR1/5 activation either protects or exacerbates neuronal death. Thus, understanding how mutant htt protein affects glutamatergic receptor signaling will be essential to further establish a role for glutamate receptors in HD and develop therapeutic strategies to treat HD.     

Fluctuation Scaling,Taylor’s Law,and Crime

Fluctuation scaling relationships have been observed in a wide range of processes ranging from internet router traffic to measles cases. Taylor’s law is one such scaling relationship and has been widely applied in ecology to understand communities including trees, birds, human populations, and insects. We show that monthly crime reports in the UK show complex fluctuation scaling which can be approximated by Taylor’s law relationships corresponding to local policing neighborhoods and larger regional and countrywide scales. Regression models applied to local scale data from Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire found that different categories of crime exhibited different scaling exponents with no significant difference between the two regions. On this scale, violence reports were close to a Poisson distribution (α = 1.057±0.026) while burglary exhibited a greater exponent (α = 1.292±0.029) indicative of temporal clustering. These two regions exhibited significantly different pre-exponential factors for the categories of anti-social behavior and burglary indicating that local variations in crime reports can be assessed using fluctuation scaling methods. At regional and countrywide scales, all categories exhibited scaling behavior indicative of temporal clustering evidenced by Taylor’s law exponents from 1.43±0.12 (Drugs) to 2.094±0081 (Other Crimes). Investigating crime behavior via fluctuation scaling gives insight beyond that of raw numbers and is unique in reporting on all processes contributing to the observed variance and is either robust to or exhibits signs of many types of data manipulation.     

Neuroinflammation,Gut Microbiome,and Alzheimer’s Disease

Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is a progressive neurodegenerative disease that develops insidiously and causes dementia finally. There are also clinical complications in advanced dementia, such as eating problems, infections, which will lead to the decline of patients’ life quality, and the rising cost of care for AD to our society. AD will be important public health challenge. Early detection of AD may be a key issue to prevent, delay, and stop the disease. Gut microbiome and neuroinflammation are closely related with nervous system diseases, although the specific mechanism is not clear. This review introduces the relationship between neuroinflammation, gut microbiome, and AD.     

Magic,semantics, and Putnam’s vat brains

In this paper we offer an exegesis of Hilary Putnam’s classic argument against the brain-in-a-vat hypothesis offered in his Reason, truth and history (1981). In it, Putnam argues that we cannot be brains in a vat because the semantics of the situation make it incoherent for anyone to wonder whether they are a brain in a vat. Putnam’s argument is that in order for ‘I am a brain in a vat’ to be true, the person uttering it would have to be able to refer successfully to those things: the vat, and the envatted brain. Putnam thinks that reference can’t be secured without relevant kinds of causal relations, which, if envatted, the brain would lack, and so, it fails to be able to meaningfully utter ‘I am a brain in a vat’. We consider the implications of Putnam’s arguments for Cartesian scepticism and suggest that there may yet be some ways out of Putnam’s arguments for the traditional sceptic. In conclusion, we discuss the role of Putnam’s arguments against the brain in a vat hypothesis in his larger defense of his own internal realism against metaphysical realism.     

Morgan’s Canon, meet Hume’s Dictum: avoiding anthropofabulation in cross-species comparisons

How should we determine the distribution of psychological traits—such as Theory of Mind, episodic memory, and metacognition—throughout the Animal kingdom? Researchers have long worried about the distorting effects of anthropomorphic bias on this comparative project. A purported corrective against this bias was offered as a cornerstone of comparative psychology by C. Lloyd Morgan in his famous “Canon”. Also dangerous, however, is a distinct bias that loads the deck against animal mentality: our tendency to tie the competence criteria for cognitive capacities to an exaggerated sense of typical human performance. I dub this error “anthropofabulation”, since it combines anthropocentrism with confabulation about our own prowess. Anthropofabulation has long distorted the debate about animal minds, but it is a bias that has been little discussed and against which the Canon provides no protection. Luckily, there is a venerable corrective against anthropofabulation: a principle offered long ago by David Hume, which I call “Hume’s Dictum”. In this paper, I argue that Hume’s Dictum deserves a privileged place next to Morgan’s Canon in the methodology of comparative psychology, illustrating my point through a discussion of the debate over Theory of Mind in nonhuman animals.     

Protein quality control: the who’s who, the where’s and therapeutic escapes

In cells the quality of newly synthesized proteins is monitored in regard to proper folding and correct assembly in the early secretory pathway, the cytosol and the nucleoplasm. Proteins recognized as non-native in the ER will be removed and degraded by a process termed ERAD. ERAD of aberrant proteins is accompanied by various changes of cellular organelles and results in protein folding diseases. This review focuses on how the immunocytochemical labeling and electron microscopic analyses have helped to disclose the in situ subcellular distribution pattern of some of the key machinery proteins of the cellular protein quality control, the organelle changes due to the presence of misfolded proteins, and the efficiency of synthetic chaperones to rescue disease-causing trafficking defects of aberrant proteins.     

Protein Homeostasis, Aging and Alzheimer’s Disease

Alzheimer's disease (AD) is one key medical challenge of the aging society and despite a great amount of effort and a huge collection of acquired data on molecular mechanisms that are associated with the onset and progression of this devastating disorder, no causal therapy is in sight. The two main hypotheses of AD, the amyloid cascade hypothesis and the Tau hypothesis, are still in the focus of AD research. With aging as the accepted main risk factor of the most important non familial and late onset sporadic forms of AD, it is now mandatory to discuss more intensively aspects of cellular aging and aging biochemistry and its impact on neurodegeneration. Since aging is accompanied by changes in cellular protein homeostasis and an increasing demand for protein degradation, aspects of protein folding, misfolding, refolding and, importantly, protein degradation need to be linked to AD pathogenesis. This is the purpose of this short review.     

Eye-tracking women’s preferences for men’s somatotypes

Judging physical attractiveness involves sight, touch, sound and smells. Where visual judgments are concerned, attentional processes may have evolved to prioritize sex-typical traits that reflect cues signaling direct or indirect (i.e. genetic) benefits. Behavioral techniques that measure response times or eye movements provide a powerful test of this assumption by directly assessing how attractiveness influences the deployment of attention. We used eye-tracking to characterize women’s visual attention to men’s back-posed bodies, which varied in overall fat and muscle distribution, while they judged the potential of each model for a short- or long-term relationship. We hypothesized that when judging male bodily attractiveness women would focus more on the upper body musculature of all somatotypes, as it is a signal of metabolic health, immunocompetence and underlying endocrine function. Results showed that mesomorphs (muscular men) received the highest attractiveness ratings, followed by ectomorphs (lean men) and endomorphs (heavily-set men). For eye movements, attention was evenly distributed to the upper and lower back of both ectomorphs and mesomorphs. In contrast, for endomorphs the lower back, including the waist, captured more attention over the viewing period. These patterns in visual attention were evident in the first second of viewing, suggesting that body composition is identified early in viewing and guides attention to body regions that provide salient biological information during judgments of men’s bodily attractiveness.     

Asperger’s Syndrome,Subjectivity and the Senses

Situated at the intersection of anthropological work on illness narratives and research on the anthropology of autism, this paper is a close reading of an autobiographical narrative recounted by Peter, a young man diagnosed with Asperger’s Syndrome, a type of autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Responding to Solomon’s (2010a:252) call for phenomenologically grounded accounts of “the subjective, sensory, and perceptual experiences of autism … based on personal narratives and practices of being and self-awareness,” this paper calls into question key assumptions in the clinical and popular literature about ASD relating to theory of mind, empathy, capacity for metaphorical thinking, and ASD as a life-long condition.