Institute of Psychology,Chinese Academy Of Sciences
Not a member yet
6627 research outputs found
Sort by
Beyond Homozygosity Mapping: Family-Control analysis based on Hamming distance for prioritizing variants in exome sequencing
No full textA major challenge in current exome sequencing in autosomal recessive (AR) families is the lack of an effective method to prioritize single-nucleotide variants (SNVs). AR families are generally too small for linkage analysis, and length of homozygous regions is unreliable for identification of causative variants. Various common filtering steps usually result in a list of candidate variants that cannot be narrowed down further or ranked. To prioritize shortlisted SNVs we consider each homozygous candidate variant together with a set of SNVs flanking it. We compare the resulting array of genotypes between an affected family member and a number of control individuals and argue that, in a family, differences between family member and controls should be larger for a pathogenic variant and SNVs flanking it than for a random variant. We assess differences between arrays in two individuals by the Hamming distance and develop a suitable test statistic, which is expected to be large for a causative variant and flanking SNVs. We prioritize candidate variants based on this statistic and applied our approach to six patients with known pathogenic variants and found these to be in the top 2 to 10 percentiles of ranks
Blocking of orexin receptors in the paraventricular nucleus of the thalamus has no effect on the expression of conditioned fear in rats
No full textThe paraventricular nucleus of the thalamus (PVT) projects to the central nucleus of the amygdala and recent experimental evidence indicates a role for the PVT in conditioned fear. Furthermore, the PVT contains a high density of orexin receptors and fibers and acute injections of orexin antagonist into the PVT produce anxiolytic effects. The present study was done to determine if administration of a dual orexin receptor antagonist (DORA) in the region of the PVT interferes with the expression of conditioned fear in rats exposed to cued and contextual conditioning paradigms. Infusion of 0.5 mu l of the DORA N-biphenyl-2-yl-1-[(1-methyl-1H-benzimidazol-2yl) sulfanyl] acetyl-L-prolinamide at a concentration of 0.1, 1.0, and 10 nmol had no effect on the freezing produced by exposing rats to an auditory cue or the context associated with foot shock. In contrast, the 1.0 and 10 nmol doses were anxiolytic in the social interaction test. The results of the present study do not support a role for orexin receptors in the PVT in the expression of learned fear. The finding that the 1.0 and 10 nmol doses of DORA in the PVT region were anxiolytic in the social interaction test is consistent with other studies indicating a role for orexins in the PVT in anxiety-like behaviors
Dimensional schizotypy and social cognition: an fMRI imaging study
No full textImpairment in empathy has been demonstrated in patients with schizophrenia and individuals with psychosis proneness. In the present study, we examined the neural correlates underlying theory of mind (ToM) and empathy and the relationships between these two social cognitive abilities with schizotypy. Fifty-six first-year college students (31 males, 25 females) between 17 and 21 years of age (M = 19.3, SD = 0.9) from a medical university in China participated. All participants undertook a comic strips functional imaging task that specifically examined both empathy and ToM. In addition, they completed two self-report scales: the Chapman Psychosis Proneness scale and the Interpersonal Responsivity Index (IRI). Results showed that both empathy and ToM conditions of the task were associated with brain activity in the middle temporal gyrus, the temporo-parietal junction (TPJ), the precuneus and the posterior cingulate gyrus. In addition, we found positive correlations between negative schizotypy and brain activity in regions involved in social cognition, namely, the middle temporal gyrus, the TPJ, as well as the medial prefrontal gyrus. These findings highlight that different dimensions of schizotypy may show different associations with brain regions involved in social cognitive abilities. More importantly, the positive correlation between brain activity and anhedonia suggests the presence of compensatory mechanisms in high-risk populations
Belief in a just world mediates the relationship between institutional trust and life satisfaction among the elderly in China
No full textThis study investigated the relationship between institutional trust and life satisfaction, and the mediating role of belief in a just world (BJW) among the elderly. The General Belief in a Just World Scale (GBJW) and Satisfaction with Life Scale (SWLS) were employed. A self-developed Institutional Trust questionnaire was used to measure participant' levels of trust in eight institutions. The aggregate score for all eight items represented the level of institutional trust. The questionnaires were completed by 19,352 retirees ranging in age from 50 to 99 (M = 69.7, SD = 8.0). The results showed the following: (1) overall, the retirees tended to report high institutional trust and high life satisfaction; (2) institutional trust was positively associated with life satisfaction; and (3) more importantly, the relationships between institutional trust and life satisfaction were partially mediated by GBJW. This finding provides a new insight into the psychological mechanisms by which institutional trust relates to individual happiness. The theoretical and practical implications of these findings, as well as the study's limitations, are discussed. (C) 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved
Promoter DNA methylation is associated with KLF11 expression in epithelial ovarian cancer
No full textAs a transforming growth factor- (TGF-)-inducible gene, the expression of Kruppel-like transcription factor 11 (KLF11) is altered in several types of cancer. In the current study, through using human 9K CpG island array, KLF11 was identified as one of hypermethylated genes in RAS-transformed ovarian T29H cells. Methylation of the KLF11 promoter was also observed in ovarian cancer tissue samples accompanied by significantly reduced KLF11 gene expression. Interestingly, the expression of SMAD2, SMAD3, and SMAD7 genes was reduced in the tumour, whilst no change was found in TGF- expression. Our data suggest a relationship between promoter DNA methylation and KLF11 gene expression in ovarian cancer tumorigenesis. (c) 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc
THE WEAKEST LINK: NEGATIVE SCHIZOTYPY SHOWS ABNORMALITIES IN STRUCTURAL AND RESTING-STATE NETWORKS
No full textThe developmental trend of orthographic awareness in Chinese preschoolers
No full textThe present study explored the developmental trend of orthographic awareness in Chinese-speaking preschoolers. A total of 184 children between 3 and 5 years of age participated in the study. Two developmental patterns of orthographic awareness were obtained. One pattern was dependent on a traditional Chinese orthographic hierarchy, with a sequence of writing system specificity, radical, whole character, radical combination rules, and stroke. Three-year-olds fully understood the writing-system-specific features of Chinese characters, and could distinguish characters from alphabetic scripts and drawings; the average accuracy was > 80 %. Five-year-olds were able to distinguish radicals from numbers, as well as regard non-characters with rotated radicals and missing radicals as illegal; the average accuracy was 87 %. At 5 years of age, children could detect whole character rotated non-characters with an average accuracy of 78 %, but were not proficient in identifying non-characters with absent strokes (the average accuracy was 69 %). The 5-year-old children did not know well about radical combination rules; the average accuracy was 67 %. The other pattern was associated with violation means of non-characters, which could be characterized as progressing from form types, to spatial formats, and finally to combination conventions. Children grasped legal form types of scripts (Chinese characters and radicals) at 3 years of age, with an average accuracy approaching 80 %. Five-year-old children detected illegal spatial characteristics of characters, such as up-down reversal, with an average accuracy of 78 %. However, children were unable to understand radical combination conventions even at 5 years of age; average accuracy was 67 %
Rostral medial prefrontal dysfunctions and consummatory pleasure in schizophrenia: A meta-analysis of functional imaging studies
No full textA large number of imaging studies have examined the neural correlates of consummatory pleasure and anticipatory pleasure in schizophrenia, but the brain regions where schizophrenia patients consistently demonstrate dysfunctions remain unclear. We performed a series of meta-analyses on imaging studies to delineate the regions associated with consummatory and anticipatory pleasure dysfunctions in schizophrenia. Nineteen functional magnetic resonance imaging or positron emission tomography studies using whole brain analysis were identified through a literature search (PubMed and EBSCO; januaiy 1990-February 2014). Activation likelihood estimation was performed using the GingerALE software. The clusters identified were obtained after controlling for the false discovery rate at p<0.05 and applying a minimum cluster size of 200 mm(3). It was found that schizophrenia patients exhibited decreased activation mainly in the rostral medial prefrontal cortex (rmPFC), the right parahippocampus/ amygala, and other limbic regions (e.g., the subgenual anterior cingulate cortex, the putamen, and the medial globus pallidus) when consummating pleasure. Task instructions (feeling vs stimuli) were differentially related to medial prefrontal dysfunction in schizophrenia. When patients anticipated pleasure, reduced activation in the left putamen was observed, despite the limited number of studies. Our findings suggest that the medial prefrontal cortex and limbic regions may play an important role in neural dysfunction underlying deficits in consummatory pleasure in schizophrenia. (C) 2015 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved
Saccade target selection in Chinese reading
No full textIn Chinese reading, there are no spaces to mark the word boundaries, so Chinese readers cannot target their saccades to the center of a word. In this study, we investigated how Chinese readers decide where to move their eyes during reading. To do so, we introduced a variant of the boundary paradigm in which only the target stimulus remained on the screen, displayed at the saccade landing site, after the participant's eyes crossed an invisible boundary. We found that when the saccade target was a word, reaction times in a lexical decision task were shorter when the saccade landing position was closer to the end of that word. These results are consistent with the predictions of a processing-based strategy to determine where to move the eyes. Specifically, this hypothesis assumes that Chinese readers estimate how much information is processed in parafoveal vision and saccade to a location that will carry novel information
Access Repository Dashboard
Do you manage Institute of Psychology,Chinese Academy Of Sciences? Access insider analytics, issue reports and manage access to outputs from your repository in the CORE Repository Dashboard!