Different Timing Features in Brain Processing of Core and Moral Disgust Pictures: An Event-Related Potentials Study

<div><p>Disgust, an emotion motivating withdrawal from offensive stimuli, protects us from the risk of biological pathogens and sociomoral violations. Homogeneity of its two types, namely, core and moral disgust has been under intensive debate. To examine the dynamic relationship between them, we recorded event-related potentials (ERPs) for core disgust, moral disgust and neutral pictures while participants performed a modified oddball task. ERP analysis revealed that N1 and P2 amplitudes were largest for the core disgust pictures, indicating automatic processing of the core disgust-evoking pictures. N2 amplitudes were higher for pictures evoking moral disgust relative to core disgust and neutral pictures, reflecting a violation of social norms. The core disgust pictures elicited larger P3 and late positive potential (LPP) amplitudes in comparison with the moral disgust pictures which, in turn, elicited larger P3 and LPP amplitudes when compared to the neutral pictures. Taken together, these findings indicated that core and moral disgust pictures elicited different neural activities at various stages of information processing, which provided supporting evidence for the heterogeneity of disgust.</p></div

The reaction times and accuracies for three types of stimuli (<i>M±SD</i>).

<p>The reaction times and accuracies for three types of stimuli (<i>M±SD</i>).</p

Stimulus-locked grand average ERP waveforms.

<p>Grand average ERP waveforms recorded from Fz, FCz, Cz, CPz and Pz in response to core disgust (black lines), moral disgust (red lines) and neutral (blue lines) pictures.</p

Results of ANOVA for the amplitudes of N1, P2, N2, P3 and LPP components.

<p>Results of ANOVA for the amplitudes of N1, P2, N2, P3 and LPP components.</p

Topographical maps of voltage amplitudes of N1, P2, N2, P3 and LPP across three conditions.

<p>Topographical maps of voltage amplitudes of N1, P2, N2, P3 and LPP across three conditions.</p

The schematic illustration of the experimental procedure.

<p>Core disgust: vomit. Moral disgust: a bad antisocial action, a person stamping on a disabled beggar. Picture presentation was terminated by a key pressing or when 1000 ms was elapsed.</p

P16 and P53 Play Distinct Roles in Different Subtypes of Breast Cancer

<div><p>Breast cancers are heterogeneous and complex diseases, and subtypes of breast cancers may involve unique molecular mechanisms. The p16^INK4a and p53 pathways are two of the major pathways involved in control of the cell cycle. They also play key roles in tumorigenesis. However, whether the roles of these pathways differ in the subtypes of breast cancer is unclear. Therefore, p16 and p53 expression were investigated in different breast cancer subtypes to ascertain their contributions to these cancers. A total of 400 cases of non-invasive ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS) and invasive ductal carcinoma (IDC), including the major molecular subtypes luminal-A, luminal-B, Her-2, and triple-negative subtypes, and 50 cases of normal controls were compared. Luminal-A cancers expressed the lowest level of p16 among the subtypes in DCIS, and the level of p16 expression was up-regulated in the luminal-A of IDC (P<0.008). Triple-negative breast cancers were characterized by a correlation of p53 overexpression with a high level of p16 expression. Luminal lesion types with high p16 expression in DCIS were found to be more likely to develop into aggressive breast cancers, possibly promoted by p53 dysfunction. Taken together, the present study suggest that p16 expression in luminal-A breast cancers is associated with their progression from DCIS to IDC, and both p53 and p16 expressions are important for the development of triple-negative breast cancers in DCIS and IDC.</p></div

Correlation between breast cancer clinical factors and p16 expression in DCIS and IDC.

<p><b>BMI</b>, body mass index; <b>BC</b>, breast cancer; <b>OC</b>, ovary cancer.</p

P16 expression predicted the risk of subsequent advanced cancer development among women with luminal DCIS.

<p><i>P</i> = 0.001, low-p16-expression DCIS versus high-p16-expression DCIS (log-rank test).</p

Haplotype frequencies in breast cancer patients and healthy controls.

<p>The haplotypes contain the following SNPs in the order listed: IL-17A: rs2275913, rs3819025 and rs3748067; IL-17F: rs763780, rs7771511, rs12203582, rs9382084 and rs1266828. The haplotypes occurred with a frequency of = 10% in the case-control population.</p>a<p><i>P</i> = 0.0471 after correcting the <i>P</i>-value for multiple testing with the Haploview program using 10,000 permutations.</p