The neural basis of responsibility attribution in decision-making

Social responsibility links personal behavior with societal expectations and plays a key role in affecting an agent's emotional state following a decision. However, the neural basis of responsibility attribution remains unclear. In two previous event-related brain potential (ERP) studies we found that personal responsibility modulated outcome evaluation in gambling tasks. Here we conducted a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study to identify particular brain regions that mediate responsibility attribution. In a context involving team cooperation, participants completed a task with their teammates and on each trial received feedback about team success and individual success sequentially. We found that brain activity differed between conditions involving team success vs. team failure. Further, different brain regions were associated with reinforcement of behavior by social praise vs. monetary reward. Specifically, right temporoparietal junction (RTPJ) was associated with social pride whereas dorsal striatum and dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) were related to reinforcement of behaviors leading to personal gain. The present study provides evidence that the RTPJ is an important region for determining whether self-generated behaviors are deserving of praise in a social context

A longitudinal resource for population neuroscience of school-age children and adolescents in China

During the past decade, cognitive neuroscience has been calling for population diversity to address the challenge of validity and generalizability, ushering in a new era of population neuroscience. The developing Chinese Color Nest Project (devCCNP, 2013–2022), the first ten-year stage of the lifespan CCNP (2013–2032), is a two-stages project focusing on brain-mind development. The project aims to create and share a large-scale, longitudinal and multimodal dataset of typically developing children and adolescents (ages 6.0–17.9 at enrolment) in the Chinese population. The devCCNP houses not only phenotypes measured by demographic, biophysical, psychological and behavioural, cognitive, affective, and ocular-tracking assessments but also neurotypes measured with magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) of brain morphometry, resting-state function, naturalistic viewing function and diffusion structure. This Data Descriptor introduces the first data release of devCCNP including a total of 864 visits from 479 participants. Herein, we provided details of the experimental design, sampling strategies, and technical validation of the devCCNP resource. We demonstrate and discuss the potential of a multicohort longitudinal design to depict normative brain growth curves from the perspective of developmental population neuroscience. The devCCNP resource is shared as part of the “Chinese Data-sharing Warehouse for In-vivo Imaging Brain” in the Chinese Color Nest Project (CCNP) – Lifespan Brain-Mind Development Data Community (https://ccnp.scidb.cn) at the Science Data Bank

The value of emotion: how does episodic prospection modulate delay discounting?

BACKGROUND: Humans often show impatience when making intertemporal choice for monetary rewards, preferring small rewards delivered immediately to larger rewards delivered after a delay, which reflects a fundamental psychological principle: delay discounting. However, we propose that episodic prospection humans can vividly envisage exerts a strong and broad influence on individuals' delay discounting. Specifically, episodic prospection may affect individuals' intertemporal choice by the negative or positive emotion of prospection. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: The present study explored how episodic prospection modulated delay discounting by emotion. Study 1 showed that participants were more inclined to choose the delayed but larger rewards when they imaged positive future events than when they did not image events; Study 2 showed that participants were more inclined to choose the immediate but smaller rewards when they imaged negative future events than when they did not image events; In contrast, study 3 showed that choice preferences of participants when they imaged neutral future events were the same as when they did not image events. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE: By manipulating the emotion valence of episodic prospection, our findings suggested that positive emotion made individuals tend to choose delayed rewards, while negative emotion made individuals tend to choose immediate rewards. Only imaging events with neutral emotion did not affect individuals' choice preference. Thus, the valence of imaged future events' emotion might play an important role in individuals' intertemporal choice. It is possible that the valence of emotion may affect the changed direction (promote or inhibit) of individuals' delay discounting, while the ability to image future events affects the changed degree of individuals' delay discounting

Neural representation of decision confidence

Decision confidence is a person's strength of belief about the optimization or correctness of a prediction, judgment, or choice. A broad range of behavioral data focus on calibration studies, however, little is known about the mechanisms underlying decision confidence. We used functional magnetic resonance imaging to investigate the neural activity while subjects made optional decisions by estimating the degree of confidence in perception task. Behaviorally, there was a significant increase in the accuracy of optional decisions compared with forced decisions, which proved the effectiveness of inducing the confidence estimation. Confidence process was mainly associated with activity in the superior parietal lobule, anterior cingulate cortex and superior frontal cortex. The behavioral waiving responses were predicted by a measure of neural decision confidence in the left superior parietal lobule. The activation in this region was correlated positively with the waiving rate, indicating the involvement of the representation of the decision confidence. These results suggested that the process of decision confidence might have evolved a more abstract and complicated network and involved in lots of cognitive functions. More importantly, the representation of decision confidence might be associated with the left superior parietal lobule. (C) 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved

Electrophysiological evidence for the importance of interpersonal curiosity

Event-related potentials (ERPs) Late positive component (LPC) a b s t r a c t Interpersonal curiosity (IPC) is an important intrinsic motivation in social interaction, yet studies focused on its neural mechanism are rare. In a three-agent (Self, Other, or Computer) interactive gambling task, we recorded event-related potentials (ERPs) to a cue stimuli indicating whether participants will be informed of their own, of another participant's or the computer's outcomes such that curiosity will be satisfied (CWS) or curiosity will not be satisfied (CWN). The results showed that relative to the CWS cue stimuli the CWN cue evoked a larger late positive component (LPC) between approximately 400 ms and 700 ms after cue onset in both the Self and Other conditions, but not in the Computer condition. Additionally, participants reported stronger curiosity in the Other's outcomes than in the Computer's outcomes. Most importantly, participants' subjective rating of curiosity was significantly correlated with the amplitude of the LPC elicited by the CWN cue. Furthermore, scores in the ''curiosity about emotion'' subscale of the IPC Scale was significantly correlated with the LPC amplitude when the participants learn they will not be informed of the Other's outcomes. We suggest that (1) interpersonal information is of great significance to individuals and IPC is an important social motivator, and (2) LPC amplitude is sensitive to IPC

Electrophysiological evidence for the importance of interpersonal curiosity.

Interpersonal curiosity (IPC) is an important intrinsic motivation in social interaction, yet studies focused on its neural mechanism are rare. In a three-agent (Self, Other, or Computer) interactive gambling task, we recorded event-related potentials (ERPs) to a cue stimuli indicating whether participants will be informed of their own, of another participant\u27s or the computer\u27s outcomes such that curiosity will be satisfied (CWS) or curiosity will not be satisfied (CWN). The results showed that relative to the CWS cue stimuli the CWN cue evoked a larger late positive component (LPC) between approximately 400 ms and 700 ms after cue onset in both the Self and Other conditions, but not in the Computer condition. Additionally, participants reported stronger curiosity in the Other\u27s outcomes than in the Computer\u27s outcomes. Most importantly, participants’ subjective rating of curiosity was significantly correlated with the amplitude of the LPC elicited by the CWN cue. Furthermore, scores in the “curiosity about emotion” subscale of the IPC Scale was significantly correlated with the LPC amplitude when the participants learn they will not be informed of the Other\u27s outcomes. We suggest that (1) interpersonal information is of great significance to individuals and IPC is an important social motivator, and (2) LPC amplitude is sensitive toIPC

Transportation characteristics of δ 13C in the plants-soil-bedrock-cave system in Chongqing karst area

Here we use an analytical method to determine δ 13C in local plants and organic matter in the soils above Furong cave, Chongqing, China. We also monitored δ 13C in dissolved inorganic carbon (DIC) of drip water, δ 13C of active deposits under the drip waters, and the concentration of air CO2 (PCO2). Based on these, we preliminarily studied the transportation characteristics of stable carbon isotope (13C) in cave system of the subtropical karst area. The average δ 13C value of 27 local plant samples, which belong to 16 families, was −32‰ and the weighted δ 13C for surface dry biomass was −33‰. We found that for 54 soil samples collected from 5 soil profiles, δ 13C of soil organic matters was −22‰, which could be attributed to the different transportation rates of stable carbon isotopes during the decomposition of plants and organic matters in soils. The relatively lighter 12C tended to transfer into gaseous CO2, which made the relatively heavier 13C concentrated in the soils. On the basis of monitoring of DIC-δ 13C in drip waters from July 2009 to June 2010, we found that values in winter months were heavier and values in summer months were lighter in general, the reason of which was that in summer months, both the temperature and the humidity were comparatively higher, resulted in more CO2 with lighter δ 13C generated from organic matters decomposition and plants respiration. The average DIC-δ 13C value was −11‰, about 11‰ heavier than the δ 13C of organic matters in soils, which proved that part of DIC in cave drip water was sourced from dissolution of inorganic carbonate (host rock, with heavier δ 13C). As for the δ 13C of active deposits at five drip water sites in Furong cave, they had almost the same variation with relatively light values. In other words, these active speleothems were deposited at equilibrium conditions for isotopic fractionation. These results suggest that the carbon isotopic information of speleothems could be used to track the evolution of local vegetation in certain situations

Compressed Air Energy Storage System with Burner and Ejector

The timescale of the energy-release process of an energy storage system has put forward higher requirements with the increasing proportion of new energy power generation in the power grid. In this paper, a new type of compressed-air energy storage system with an ejector and combustor is proposed in order to realize short-timescale and long-timescale energy-release processes under the non-supplementary combustion condition and ejector supplementary combustion condition, respectively. A simulation model of the new system is established in APROS software. The results of this study show that the new system can realize continuous power output when energy storage and energy release operate simultaneously, and especially when the ejector coefficient is 0.8 and burner thermal power is 10 MW, the power-generation time is 12.45 h and the total generated power is 140,052 kW∙h, which are 15.6 and 17.5 times greater those of the short-timescale condition, respectively. In summary, the compressed-air energy storage system with an ejector and combustor that is proposed in this paper can flexibly meet the demands of multiple timescales’ power generation

Transportation characteristics of δ 13C in the plants-soil-bedrock-cave system in Chongqing karst area

Here we use an analytical method to determine δ 13C in local plants and organic matter in the soils above Furong cave, Chongqing, China. We also monitored δ 13C in dissolved inorganic carbon (DIC) of drip water, δ 13C of active deposits under the drip waters, and the concentration of air CO2 (PCO2). Based on these, we preliminarily studied the transportation characteristics of stable carbon isotope (13C) in cave system of the subtropical karst area. The average δ 13C value of 27 local plant samples, which belong to 16 families, was −32‰ and the weighted δ 13C for surface dry biomass was −33‰. We found that for 54 soil samples collected from 5 soil profiles, δ 13C of soil organic matters was −22‰, which could be attributed to the different transportation rates of stable carbon isotopes during the decomposition of plants and organic matters in soils. The relatively lighter 12C tended to transfer into gaseous CO2, which made the relatively heavier 13C concentrated in the soils. On the basis of monitoring of DIC-δ 13C in drip waters from July 2009 to June 2010, we found that values in winter months were heavier and values in summer months were lighter in general, the reason of which was that in summer months, both the temperature and the humidity were comparatively higher, resulted in more CO2 with lighter δ 13C generated from organic matters decomposition and plants respiration. The average DIC-δ 13C value was −11‰, about 11‰ heavier than the δ 13C of organic matters in soils, which proved that part of DIC in cave drip water was sourced from dissolution of inorganic carbonate (host rock, with heavier δ 13C). As for the δ 13C of active deposits at five drip water sites in Furong cave, they had almost the same variation with relatively light values. In other words, these active speleothems were deposited at equilibrium conditions for isotopic fractionation. These results suggest that the carbon isotopic information of speleothems could be used to track the evolution of local vegetation in certain situations