Interfering with activity in the dorsomedial prefrontal cortex via TMS affects social impressions updating

In our everyday social interactions we often need to deal with others' unpredictable behaviors. Integrating unexpected information in a consistent representation of another agent is a cognitively demanding process. Several neuroimaging studies point to the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) as a critical structure in mediating social evaluations. Our aim here was to shed light on the possible causal role of the mPFC in the dynamic process of forming and updating social impressions about others. We addressed this issue by suppressing activity in the mPFC by means of 1 Hz offline transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) prior to a task requiring participants to evaluate other agents' trustworthiness after reading about their social behavior. In two different experiments, we found that inhibiting activity in the mPFC increased perceived trustworthiness when inconsistent information about one agent's behavior was provided. In turn, when only negative or positive behaviors of a person were described, TMS over the mPFC did not affect judgments. Our results indicate that the mPFC is causally involved in mediating social impressions updating-at least in cases in which judgment is uncertain due to conflicting information to be processe

Expanding the use of expanded criteria donors in kidney transplantation

Although the use of kidney allografts from expanded criteria donors (ECD) has increased in recent years, the reported discard rates are also growing. the influence of ECD characteristics on transplant outcomes is still underevaluated.This retrospective study investigated the influence of preimplantation biopsy findings and delayed graft function (DGF) on patient and graft survivals and renal function at 36 months in a cohort of 372 ECD kidney transplant recipients.Patient and graft survivals were 91.6 and 68.9 %. the incidence of biopsy-proven acute rejection was 31 %. There were no differences in patient (88.6 vs. 91.1 vs. 94.7 vs. 78.6 %, p = 0.10) or graft (78.1 vs. 72.2 vs. 60.5 vs. 62.6 %, p = 0.14) survivals and renal function (41.7 +/- A 25.6 vs. 39.9 +/- A 29.9 vs. 38.1 +/- A 30.6 vs. 37.4 +/- A 29.2 mL/min, p = 0.79) comparing ECD kidneys with mild, moderate, and severe histological changes or with no preimplantation biopsy, respectively. However, severe scored transplants had the worst death-censored graft survival (OR 3.1, 95 % CI 1.4-6.9, p = 0.007). No significant differences in patient (86.2 vs. 83.4 %, p = 0.17) or graft (73.7 vs. 65.9 %, p = 0.06) survivals and renal function (38.9 +/- A 28.6 vs. 39.9 +/- A 28.4 mL/min, p = 0.72) were observed comparing patients with or without DGF. Multivariable analysis found diabetes history as the only independent risk factor for graft loss (OR 2.1, 95 % CI 1.3-3.3, p = 0.003) or patient death (OR 3.1, 95 % CI 1.5-5.8, p < 0.001).Within the limitations of sample size and short follow-up time, in this cohort of ECD kidney transplant recipients the severity of histological changes observed in preimplantation biopsies was independently associated with graft loss.Universidade Federal de São Paulo, Transplant Div, Hosp Rim & Hipertensao, BR-04038002 São Paulo, BrazilUniversidade Federal de São Paulo, Div Nephrol, Hosp Rim, BR-04038002 São Paulo, BrazilUniversidade Federal de São Paulo, Transplant Div, Hosp Rim & Hipertensao, BR-04038002 São Paulo, BrazilUniversidade Federal de São Paulo, Div Nephrol, Hosp Rim, BR-04038002 São Paulo, BrazilWeb of Scienc