Can You Feel it? How Asking Influences Reports of Psychophysiological States

213 participants were shown a sequence of five different increasingly disgusting images. Depending on condition, they were either directly asked (solicited) or prompted to volunteer (unsolicited) whether or not they were experiencing disgust in response to a given image. We found that the act of solicitation directly lowers the threshold at which individuals are willing to provide information about their internal psychophysiological experience of disgust

A Virtue Theoretic Solution to the Problem of Moral Luck

At the beginning of his famous paper “Moral Luck,” Thomas Nagel notes that it is intuitively plausible that people cannot be morally assessed for what is beyond their control. He then argues that most, if not all, of what people do is beyond their control. Thus, Nagel concludes that individuals must deny that people cannot be morally assessed for what is beyond their control, alter the way they think about morality, or abandon the belief that moral assessment is possible. I contend that one’s best option is to alter the way one thinks about morality and therefore draw from the work of Michael J. Zimmerman to construct and defend a counterfactual theory of moral assessment which looks not only at the kind of person one is and the kinds of actions one performs but also at the kind of person one would be and the kinds of actions one would perform in certain counterfactual circumstances. In closing, I explain why one who accepts my counterfactual theory of moral assessment has reason to prefer virtue ethical theories of morality to their consequentialist and deontological counterparts

Common and low Frequency variants in MERTK are independently associated with multiple sclerosis susceptibility with discordant association dependent upon HLA-DRB1*15:01 status

Multiple Sclerosis (MS) is a chronic inflammatory demyelinating disease of the central nervous system. The risk of developing MS is strongly influenced by genetic predisposition, and over 100 loci have been established as associated with susceptibility. However, the biologically relevant variants underlying disease risk have not been defined for the vast majority of these loci, limiting the power of these genetic studies to define new avenues of research for the development of MS therapeutics. It is therefore crucial that candidate MS susceptibility loci are carefully investigated to identify the biological mechanism linking genetic polymorphism at a given gene to the increased chance of developing MS. MERTK has been established as an MS susceptibility gene and is part of a family of receptor tyrosine kinases known to be involved in the pathogenesis of demyelinating disease. In this study we have refined the association of MERTK with MS risk to independent signals from both common and low frequency variants. One of the associated variants was also found to be linked with increased expression of MERTK in monocytes and higher expression of MERTK was associated with either increased or decreased risk of developing MS, dependent upon HLA-DRB1*15:01 status. This discordant association potentially extended beyond MS susceptibility to alterations in disease course in established MS. This study provides clear evidence that distinct polymorphisms within MERTK are associated with MS susceptibility, one of which has the potential to alter MERTK transcription, which in turn can alter both susceptibility and disease course in MS patients

The Effects of Tylenol in Non-Social Emotional Memory Effects

78 participants recalled three slides (pre, critical, and post) from either an emotional or neutral 15-slide presentation with half the participants receiving 500 mg of acetaminophen and half a placebo. Across all conditions, acetaminophen participants recalled the post-critical slide better than the placebo participants

Remembering the One that Got Away; Tylenol might Help!

People tend to describe physical pain and social pain with the same terminology (deWall & Baumesiter, 2006; Eisenberger, et al., 2003; Way, et al., 2009). This suggests that there is a neurobiological overlap between the systems that control physical and social pain. DeWall (2011) found that invididuals who received a dose of acetaminophen had less activity in the bilateral anterior insula and bilateral posterior insula during a social rejection stimulation. Because social rejection also increases memory (Pajkos, et al., 2011), if subjects were given acetaminophen during social rejection then the memory enhancement should disappear. 59 students viewed an online dating video, requested a date, and were then romantically rejected harsly or politely. Half were given Tylenol, half a placebo. Harshly rejected students remembered significantly more than those politely rejected, and Tylenol enhanced details remembered by the harshly rejected participants

Low and moderate frequency variants in MERTK are independently associated with Multiple Sclerosis susceptibility with discordant association dependent upon HLA-DRB1*1501 status.

Background: Susceptibility to Multiple Sclerosis (MS) is mediated by both genetic and environmental factors. Studies have shown that the family of tyrosine receptor kinases known as the TAMs (Tyro3, Axl, Mertk), play important roles in myelination and immune responses, and genetic variations within MERTK are associated with susceptibility to MS. Objectives: In order to identify functionally relevant variants associated with MS risk, we performed fine mapping of MERTK, as well as expression analyses in immune cell types isolated from people with MS and healthy controls. Methods: We employed a next generation sequencing strategy of individuals selected on the basis of MERTK haplotype to identify potential functional variants, followed by association testing of identified variants, with a particular focus on low frequency and novel variants within MERTK. We performed expression analysis (RNA) and protein analysis (flow cytometry) in immune cell subtypes in conjunction with MERTK genetics to determine the functional consequences of MS risk associated variants. Results: Low and moderate frequency variants within MERTK were independently associated with MS susceptibility. Importantly, our results demonstrated that alternate alleles at the same position within MERTK were associated with MS risk, dependent on HLA-DRB1*1501 haplotype status. Furthermore, MS susceptibility variants in MERTK were associated with altered expression of Mertk in human monocytes. Conclusions: Genetic variants within MERTK are associated with increased risk of MS, and these variants correlate with altered Mertk expression in human monocytes. Altered expression of Mertk, dependent on the allele present and in the context of HLA-DRB1*1501 status, may have consequences for monocyte function and protection against development of MS

SNPs within <i>MERTK</i> define both risk and protective haplotypes associated with MS susceptibility.

<p>28 SNPs within the <i>MERTK</i> gene form a single block of very high LD (D'>0.99, LOD≥2). The five most frequent haplotypes (population frequency >1%) are shown in this schematic, along with the <i>p</i>-value of association of each haplotype with MS susceptibility as determined using a Chi-square test. Arrowhead indicates the haplotype-tagging allele of rs13414207 in haplotype 5. The alleles presented for rs17174870 are inferred from data obtained from sequencing the opposite strand but are presented as CT to maintain consistency with the remainder of the study.</p

Summary of variants identified in <i>MERTK</i>.

<p>Summary of variants identified in <i>MERTK</i>.</p