Development and validation of the Yonsei-Cambridge Mindreading Face Battery for assessing complex emotion recognition.

As an essential component of social cognition, emotion recognition is closely related to psychosocial adjustment. Particularly, the usefulness of the assessment of complex emotion recognition has been emphasized in that complex rather than basic emotions reflect the complicated and wide-ranging social cognition of individuals. In this study, the Yonsei-Cambridge Mindreading Face Battery (Y-CAM) was developed based on the Cambridge Mindreading Face Battery to assess complex emotion recognition among Korean adults (age range = 20-27 years). For this, 18 complex emotions from the original tool were selected, and 113 initial items were developed by generating video stimuli. Then, item difficulty and discrimination, internal consistency, test-retest reliability, and convergent validity of the developed items were tested by administering the items to 342 participants. The results yielded 16 complex emotions with 3 items having the highest fit for each emotion; consequently, there were 48 final items. The internal consistency and test-retest reliability of the final version were acceptable. The Y-CAM total scores were significantly negatively correlated with symptoms of autism, state anxiety, and experience of being bullied, thus establishing the convergent validity of the instrument. Based on the findings, the academic and clinical implications and limitations of the current work were discussed. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

Nitric oxide synthase and calcium-binding protein-containing neurons in the hamster visual cortex.

The distribution and morphology of neurons containing neuronal nitric oxide synthase (NOS), and calcium-binding proteins calbindin D28K and calretinin in the hamster visual cortex were compared by immunocytochemistry. Staining for NOS, calbindin D28K and calretinin was seen both in the specific layers and in the selective cell types. The densest concentration of anti-NOS-immunoreactive (IR) neurons was found in layer VI. Most of the calbindin D28K-IR neurons were located in layers II/III and V while the calretinin-IR neurons were predominantly located in layers II/III. The labeled neurons varied in morphology. The large majority of NOS-IR neurons were round or oval cells with many dendrites coursing in all directions. The majority of the calbindin D28K-IR neurons were stellate and round or oval cells with multipolar dendrites. The majority of the calretinin-IR neurons were vertical fusiform cells with long processes traveling perpendicular to the pial surface. Our study showed that 14.7% and 27.5% of the NOS-IR cells in the hamster visual cortex contained calbindin D28K or calretinin, respectively. These results indicate that NOS, calbindin and calretinin are located in specific layers and specific cell types and the vast majority of NOS-containing neurons are limited to neurons that do not express calbindin D28K or calretinin.

Over-expression of c-raf-1 proto-oncogene in liver cirrhosis and hepatocellular carcinoma.

Liver cirrhosis accompanies at least 70% of hepatocellular carcinomas world-wide. To evaluate the dysregulation of apoptosis and the MAPK pathway in hepatocarcinogenesis, we investigated the expression profiles of the genes involved in apoptosis and MAPK pathway in cirrhosis and hepatocellular carcinoma. A total of 94 tissue specimens (61 cirrhosis and 33 hepatocellular carcinoma) obtained from 67 patients were analyzed by microarray, quantitative PCR and Western blot experiments. Of 71 apoptosis-associated genes, c-raf-1 and S6 were up-regulated in 42.9% and 32.1% of 28 cirrhosis tissues, respectively, and both genes were well correlated in a five-cluster K-means analysis. For c-raf-1 and down stream genes in the MAPK pathway, c-raf-1, MEK, and MAPK were up-regulated in 40%, 80%, and 86.7% of 45 cirrhosis specimens, respectively, and in 50%, 63.6%, and 59.1% of 22 hepatocellular carcinoma specimens, respectively. Western blot analysis showed that activated Raf-1 was over-expressed in 91.2% (52/57) of cirrhosis and in 100% (30/30) of hepatocellular carcinoma. The expression level of Raf-1 in 14 of 26 paired samples (53.8%) was significantly higher in hepatocellular carcinoma than in cirrhosis ( [Formula: see text] -fold, [Formula: see text] ). These results suggest that the activation of Raf-1 plays an important role in the development of hepatocellular carcinoma.