State Anxiety Down-Regulates Empathic Responses: Electrophysiological Evidence

State anxiety is common in our life and has a significant impact on our emotion, cognition and behavior. Previous studies demonstrate that people in a negative mood are associated with low sympathy and high personal distress. However, it is unknown how state anxiety regulates empathic responses so far. Here, we recorded event-related brain potentials (ERP) from the experimental group who were in state anxiety and the control group when they were watching painful and neutral pictures. Participants in the experimental group and the control group were asked to do the same mental arithmetic problems. The only difference was that the experimental group had time restriction and was evaluated by the observer. The results showed that no significant N2 differentiation between painful and neutral stimuli was found in both groups. In contrast, LPP amplitudes induced by painful stimuli were significantly larger than that of neutral stimuli in the control group, but not in the experimental group. Our results indicate that state anxiety inhibit empathic responses from the early emotional sharing stage to the late cognitive evaluation stage. It provides neuroscientific evidence that one’s own emotional state will have an important impact on empathy

Self-Interest Induces Counter- Empathy at the Late Stage of Empathic Responses to Others’ Economic Payoffs

Previous studies have found that individuals exhibit empathic responses when others are treated unfairly. However, there remains a lack of clarity over the extent to which self-interest regulates these empathic responses, and in identifying which component of empathy is more likely to be affected. To investigate these issues, an experiment was designed based on a money distribution task with two conditions [observation condition (OC) vs. participation condition (PC)], and carried out using scalp-recorded event-related potentials (ERPs). Behavioral data showed that the participants’ empathic responses were consistent with their coplayers’ emotional expressions in the OC, whereas they were inconsistent with the coplayers’ expressions in the PC. The electrophysiological data showed that the neural encoding of facial expressions (reflected in the N170) was not affected by self-interest. However, the late stage of empathic responses (LPP) showed a decline when participants’ self-interest was involved. Disadvantageous inequality and relatively fair distribution to others elicited a more pronounced feedback-related negativity (FRN) than advantageous inequality distribution in both the OC and PC. As the late stage of empathic responses is also indexed by the LPP amplitude, these results indicate that the participants were more concerned for their own outcomes than for others’ benefits when self-interest was involved, which reduced their empathy toward their coplayers at the late stage of empathic responses

Competitive Intensity Modulates the Pain Empathy Response: An Event-Related Potentials Study

Previous studies have widely reported that competition modulates an individual’s ability to empathize with pain experienced by others. What remains to be clarified, however, is how modulations in the intensity of competition might affect this type of empathy. To investigate this, we first used a Eriksen Flanker task to set different competitive intensity context (high competitive intensity, HCI; medium competitive intensity, MCI; low competitive intensity, LCI). Then we used a recognition task as a competitive task, in which we recorded event-related potentials (ERP) while participants viewed static images of body parts in painful and non-painful situations. Participants were informed that both sets of images depicted an opponent that they were required to play against in the recognition task that varied in levels of competitive intensity according to condition (HCI, MCI, and LCI). We observed an early N2 differentiation between pain and no-pain stimuli over the frontal area under MCI and LCI conditions, but this was not detected under HCI condition. Moreover, we observed a pattern of pain and no-pain differentiation for the late LPP over the frontal and centro-parietal regions under HCI, MCI, and LCI condition. As the pain empathy response is indexed by pain and no-pain differentiation, these results indicate a down-regulation of pain empathy response attributable to a high level of competition. With its very early onset, this effect appears to inhibit bottom-up processing of the ability to perceive pain experienced by an opponent. Our results provide neuroscientific evidence for a deficit in early automatic arousal in response to the pain of the opponent under the influence of high competitive intensity

Ultra-broadband and tunable infrared absorber based on VO2 hybrid multi-layer nanostructure

We propose an ultra-broadband near- to mid-infrared (NMIR) tunable absorber based on VO2 hybrid multi-layer nanostructure by hybrid integration of the upper and the lower parts. The upper part is composed of VO2 nanocylinder arrays prepared on the front illuminated surface of quartz substrate, and VO2 square films and VO2/SiO2/VO2 square nanopillar arrays prepared on the back surface. The lower part is an array of SiO2/Ti/VO2 nanopillars on Ti substrate. The effects of different structural parameters and temperature on the absorption spectra were analyzed by the finite-difference time-domain method. An average absorption rate of up to 94.7% and an ultra-wide bandwidth of 6.5 μm were achieved in NMIR 1.5–8 μm. Neither vertical incident light with different polarization angles nor large inclination incident light has a significant effect on the absorption performance of the absorber. The ultra-broadband high absorption performance of this absorber will be widely used in NMIR photodetectors and other new optoelectronic devices

Porous hierarchical TiO2/MoS2/RGO nanoflowers as anode material for sodium ion batteries with high capacity and stability

To enhance the reversible capacity and cycle stability of MoS2 as anode materials for sodium ion batteries (SIBs), we constructed a hybrid architecture composed of MoS2 and TiO2 nanosheets, linking with reduced graphene oxide (RGO) to another TiO2/MoS2 to form a nanoflower structure. Owing to layered RGO coupled with TiO2/MoS2 hybrid, such a composite offered interconnected conductive channels to short shuttle path of Na+ ions and favorable transport kinetics under charge/discharge cycling. Moreover, this unique structure showed a porous and hierarchical architecture, which not only buffered volume changes but also provided more electrochemical active sites during insertion/deintercalation processes of Na ions. Outstanding electrochemical performances were identified by the component matching effect among TiO2, MoS2 and RGO with a three-dimensional (3D) interconnected network, exhibiting a good reversible capacity of 616 mA h g-1 after 100 cycles at 0.1 A g-1, an excellent rate capability of 250 mA h g-1 even at 5A g-1 and a long cycling stability of 460 mA h g-1 with a capacity fluctuation of 0.03% per cycle within 350 cycles at 1 A g-1

The roles of nasal nitric oxide in diagnosis and endotypes of chronic rhinosinusitis with nasal polyps

Abstract Background Chronic rhinosinusitis with polyps (CRSwNP) is a global health concern. Nasal nitric oxide (nNO), a clinical biomarker, have been studied to assess the presence of airway mucosal inflammation. This study aimed to clarify the roles of nNO in diagnosis and endotypes of CRSwNP. Methods Eighty-two CRSwNP patients and thirty healthy volunteers were recruited for this study. The patients were classified into eosinophilic CRSwNP (Eos CRSwNP) and non⁃eosinophilic CRSwNP (Non-Eos CRSwNP) endotypes by tissue eosinophil percentage. nNO levels were measured with an electrochemical sensor-based device. nNO levels and clinical factors were compared among the groups. Receiver-operating characteristic (ROC) curve and logistic regression analyses were performed to evaluate the predictive ability of the nNO for diagnosis and endotypes of CRSwNP. Results Eos CRSwNP patients(143.9 ± 106.2, ppb) had lower nNO levels than Non-Eos CRSwNP(228.3 ± 109.2, ppb, p = 0.013) and healthy subjects(366.5 ± 88, ppb, p < 0.0001). Patients with atopy exhibited significantly higher levers of nNO compared with patients without atopy (p < 0.05). For Eos CRSwNP diagnosis, nNO had high predictive value for Eos CRSwNP (AUC: 0.939; sensitivity: 76.74%; specificity: 96.67%; cut-off value: 231 ppb, p < 0.001). Furthermore, nNO levels were associated with CRSwNP endotypes (odds ratio: 1.010; 95% confidence interval: 1.003, 1.016%; p = 0.002). When the nNO concentration was 158 ppb, we could discriminate Eos CRSwNP from Non-Eos CRSwNP (AUC = 0.710, sensitivity: 76.92%; specificity, 60.47%, P = 0.001). After it was combinated by nNO, peripheral blood eosinophil count (PEAC) and VAS score, the AUC was increased to 0.894 (95%CI = 0.807 to 0.951, p < 0.0001, sensitivity:76.74%, specificity: 89.74%). Conclusions nNO may have potential for non-invasive diagnosis and endotype of CRSwNP. nNO combined with PEAC and VAS score may be a good diagnostic tool for endotyps of Eos CRSwNP. However, the atopic status of the patients influenced the levels of nNO

Ultra-broadband and tunable infrared absorber based on VO

We propose an ultra-broadband near- to mid-infrared (NMIR) tunable absorber based on VO2 hybrid multi-layer nanostructure by hybrid integration of the upper and the lower parts. The upper part is composed of VO2 nanocylinder arrays prepared on the front illuminated surface of quartz substrate, and VO2 square films and VO2/SiO2/VO2 square nanopillar arrays prepared on the back surface. The lower part is an array of SiO2/Ti/VO2 nanopillars on Ti substrate. The effects of different structural parameters and temperature on the absorption spectra were analyzed by the finite-difference time-domain method. An average absorption rate of up to 94.7% and an ultra-wide bandwidth of 6.5 μm were achieved in NMIR 1.5–8 μm. Neither vertical incident light with different polarization angles nor large inclination incident light has a significant effect on the absorption performance of the absorber. The ultra-broadband high absorption performance of this absorber will be widely used in NMIR photodetectors and other new optoelectronic devices