The ENIGMA Stroke Recovery Working Group: Big data neuroimaging to study brain–behavior relationships after stroke

The goal of the Enhancing Neuroimaging Genetics through Meta‐Analysis (ENIGMA) Stroke Recovery working group is to understand brain and behavior relationships using well‐powered meta‐ and mega‐analytic approaches. ENIGMA Stroke Recovery has data from over 2,100 stroke patients collected across 39 research studies and 10 countries around the world, comprising the largest multisite retrospective stroke data collaboration to date. This article outlines the efforts taken by the ENIGMA Stroke Recovery working group to develop neuroinformatics protocols and methods to manage multisite stroke brain magnetic resonance imaging, behavioral and demographics data. Specifically, the processes for scalable data intake and preprocessing, multisite data harmonization, and large‐scale stroke lesion analysis are described, and challenges unique to this type of big data collaboration in stroke research are discussed. Finally, future directions and limitations, as well as recommendations for improved data harmonization through prospective data collection and data management, are provided

Cross cultural regularities in the cognitive architecture of pride

Pride occurs in every known culture, appears early in development, is reliably triggered by achievements and formidability, and causes a characteristic display that is recognized everywhere. Here, we evaluate the theory that pride evolved to guide decisions relevant to pursuing actions that enhance valuation and respect for a person in the minds of others. By hypothesis, pride is a neurocomputational program tailored by selection to orchestrate cognition and behavior in the service of: (i) motivating the cost-effective pursuit of courses of action that would increase others' valuations and respect of the individual, (ii) motivating the advertisement of acts or characteristics whose recognition by others would lead them to enhance their evaluations of the individual, and (iii) mobilizing the individual to take advantage of the resulting enhanced social landscape. To modulate how much to invest in actions that might lead to enhanced evaluations by others, the pride system must forecast the magnitude of the evaluations the action would evoke in the audience and calibrate its activation proportionally. We tested this prediction in 16 countries across 4 continents (n = 2,085), for 25 acts and traits. As predicted, the pride intensity for a given act or trait closely tracks the valuations of audiences, local (mean r = +0.82) and foreign (mean r = +0.75). This relationship is specific to pride and does not generalize to other positive emotions that coactivate with pride but lack its audience-recalibrating function

Naturalizing Institutions: Evolutionary Principles and Application on the Case of Money

In recent extensions of the Darwinian paradigm into economics, the replicator-interactor duality looms large. I propose a strictly naturalistic approach to this duality in the context of the theory of institutions, which means that its use is seen as being always and necessarily dependent on identifying a physical realization. I introduce a general framework for the analysis of institutions, which synthesizes Searle's and Aoki's theories, especially with regard to the role of public representations (signs) in the coordination of actions, and the function of cognitive processes that underly rule-following as a behavioral disposition. This allows to conceive institutions as causal circuits that connect the population-level dynamics of interactions with cognitive phenomena on the individual level. Those cognitive phenomena ultimately root in neuronal structures. So, I draw on a critical restatement of the concept of the meme by Aunger to propose a new conceptualization of the replicator in the context of institutions, namely, the replicator is a causal conjunction between signs and neuronal structures which undergirds the dispositions that generate rule-following actions. Signs, in turn, are outcomes of population-level interactions. I apply this framework on the case of money, analyzing the emotions that go along with the use of money, and presenting a stylized account of the emergence of money in terms of the naturalized Searle-Aoki model. In this view, money is a neuronally anchored metaphor for emotions relating with social exchange and reciprocity. Money as a meme is physically realized in a replicator which is a causal conjunction of money artefacts and money emotions

Relative status regulates risky decision making about resources in men: evidence for the co-evolution of motivation and cognition

Relative social status strongly regulates human behavior, yet this factor has been largely ignored in research on risky decision making. Humans, like other animals, incur risks as they compete to defend or improve their standing in a social group. Among men, access to culturally important resources is a locus of intrasexual competition and a determinant of status. Thus, relative status should affect men's motivations for risk in relevant domains. Contrasting predictions about such effects were derived from dominance theory and risk-sensitive foraging theory. Experiments varied whether subjects thought they were being observed and evaluated by others of lower, equal or higher status, and whether decisions involved resources (status relevant) or medical treatments (status irrelevant). Across two experiments, men who thought others of equal status were viewing and evaluating their decisions were more likely to favor a high-risk/high-gain means of recouping a monetary loss over a no-risk/low-gain means with equal expected value. Supporting predictions from dominance theory, this motivation for risk taking appeared only in the equal status condition, only for men, and only for resource loss problems. Taken together, the results support the idea that motivational systems designed to negotiate a status-saturated social world regulate the cognitive processes that generate risky decision making in men. (c) 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved

Unfairness sensitivity and social decision-making in individuals with alcohol dependence: A preliminary study.

Altruistic punishment is an evolutionary-based mechanism aimed at maximizing the probability of reciprocity in cooperative exchanges, through the deterrence of non-cooperators. In economic games, humans will often punish others for non-cooperation, even if this punishment is costly to the self. For instance, in the Ultimatum Game paradigm, people refuse offers considered as unfair even though they are disadvantaged financially by doing so. Here, we hypothesize that, due to an impulsive decision making style, individuals with alcoholism will display an heightened unfairness sensitivity that leads them to reject advantageous offers more frequently on the Ultimatum Game.Journal ArticleSCOPUS: ar.jinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishe