INTRODUCTION: Threats to our survival are often posed by the environment in which humans have evolved or live today. Animal and human ancestors developed complex physiological and behavioral response systems to cope with two types of threats: immediate physical harm from predators or conspecifics, triggering fear, and the risk of infections from parasites and pathogens leading to the evolution of the behavioral immune system (BIS) with disgust as the key emotion. Here we ask whether the BIS has adapted to protect us from pandemic risks or poisoning by modern toxic substances. METHODS: We have developed a survey comprised of 60 vignettes describing threats evoking fear and disgust belonging to one of the three main categories of threats: (1) ancestral, (2) modern, and (3) pandemic of airborne disease. Each vignette was evaluated on a 7-point Likert scale based on fear, disgust, and anger. Respondents also completed an assessment battery. RESULTS: The results show that the strongest fear is triggered by modern threats (electricity, car accidents), while the highest disgust is evoked by ancient threats (body waste products, worms). Disgust does not respond to modern threat stimuli such as toxic substances or radioactivity as these evoke mainly fear and anger. A discriminant factor analysis classified nine out of 10 pandemic disgust vignettes into the ancestral disgust category, convincingly assigning the pandemic disgust threats to the ancestral type. Gender, age, and type of education were significant moderators of emotional responses across all threat categories. DISCUSSION: Our study reveals that while fear is more context-dependent, particularly triggered by modern threats, disgust operates on an evolutionarily hardwired basis, making it less effective against contemporary risks. Furthermore, disgust experienced during a pandemic outbreak is more closely aligned with ancestral disgust-related threats tapping into evolutionary ancient survival circuits of the BIS. However, as disgust declines with age, the brain must adaptatively shift the emotional processing from disgust to fear to protect older adults from contamination risks. Finally, our study reveals that pandemic fear is better predicted by specific behaviors rather than general anxiety, suggesting a need for new assessments.
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- časopisecké články MeSH
There is a well-established link between abnormal sperm chromatin states and poor motility, however, how these two processes are interdependent is unknown. Here, we identified a possible mechanistic insight by showing that Protamine 2, a nuclear DNA packaging protein in sperm, directly interacts with cytoskeletal protein Septin 12, which is associated with sperm motility. Septin 12 has several isoforms, and we show, that in the Prm2-/- sperm, the short one (Mw 36 kDa) is mis-localized, while two long isoforms (Mw 40 and 41 kDa) are unexpectedly lost in Prm2-/- sperm chromatin-bound protein fractions. Septin 12 co-immunoprecipitated with Protamine 2 in the testicular cell lysate of WT mice and with Lamin B1/2/3 in co-transfected HEK cells despite we did not observe changes in Lamin B2/B3 proteins or SUN4 expression in Prm2-/- testes. Furthermore, the Prm2-/- sperm have on average a smaller sperm nucleus and aberrant acrosome biogenesis. In humans, patients with low sperm motility (asthenozoospermia) have imbalanced histone-protamine 1/2 ratio, modified levels of cytoskeletal proteins and we detected retained Septin 12 isoforms (Mw 40 and 41 kDa) in the sperm membrane, chromatin-bound and tubulin/mitochondria protein fractions. In conclusion, our findings present potential interaction between Septin 12 and Protamine 2 or Lamin B2/3 and describe a new connection between their expression and localization, contributing likely to low sperm motility and morphological abnormalities.
- Publikační typ
- časopisecké články MeSH
INTRODUCTION: Animal and human ancestors developed complex physiological and behavioral response systems to cope with two types of threats: immediate physical harm from predators or conspecifics, triggering fear, and the risk of infections from parasites and pathogens leading to the evolution of the behavioral immune system with disgust as the key emotion. Integration of the evolutionary concepts of the fear module and behavioral immune systems has been infrequent, despite the significant survival advantages of disgust in various contexts. Studies comparing attention to ancestral and modern threats accompanied by fear have yielded ambiguous results and what qualifies as salient modern disgusting stimuli remains unclear. We do not know whether disgust or the behavioral immune system, as inherent aspects of human psychology, have adapted to safeguard us from pandemic risks or poisoning by modern toxic substances. METHODS: To test these effects, we have developed a survey comprised of 60 short vignettes describing threats evoking fear and disgust belonging to one of the three main categories of threats: (1) ancestral (phylogenetic), (2) modern (ontogenetic), and (3) pandemics of airborne disease. Each vignette was evaluated on a 7-point Likert scale based on fear, disgust, and anger. In total, 660 respondents completed the survey. The data were analysed using a factor analysis and general linear model with the respondent as a random factor. RESULTS: The results show that the strongest fear is triggered by modern threats (electricity, car accidents), while the highest disgust is evoked by ancient threats (body waste products, worms, etc.). Interestingly, disgust does not respond to modern threat stimuli such as toxic substances or radioactivity as these evoke mainly fear and anger. Finally, a distinct response pattern was found for pandemic threats, in which both fear (e.g., of disease and death) and disgust (e.g., of used face masks) are employed. DISCUSSION: Our study offers valuable insights into the emotional responses to ancestral and modern threats and their adaptation to pandemic challenges. Ancestral threats are not always more powerful stimuli than adequate threats of the modern type, but they function specifically. Thus, snakes and heights as fear-inducing ancestral threats form separate factors in a multivariate analysis, whereas all ancestral disgust stimuli group together. The threat of a pandemic forms a specific category and people process it emotionally and cognitively. These insights contribute to our understanding of human psychology and behavior in an ever-changing world.
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- časopisecké články MeSH
The asymmetric localization of biomolecules is critical for body plan development. One of the most popular model organisms for early embryogenesis studies is Xenopus laevis but there is a lack of information in other animal species. Here, we compared the early development of two amphibian species-the frog X. laevis and the axolotl Ambystoma mexicanum. This study aimed to identify asymmetrically localized RNAs along the animal-vegetal axis during the early development of A. mexicanum. For that purpose, we performed spatial transcriptome-wide analysis at low resolution, which revealed dynamic changes along the animal-vegetal axis classified into the following categories: profile alteration, de novo synthesis and degradation. Surprisingly, our results showed that many of the vegetally localized genes, which are important for germ cell development, are degraded during early development. Furthermore, we assessed the motif presence in UTRs of degraded mRNAs and revealed the enrichment of several motifs in RNAs of germ cell markers. Our results suggest novel reorganization of the transcriptome during embryogenesis of A. mexicanum to converge to the similar developmental pattern as the X. laevis.
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- časopisecké články MeSH
Juno and CD9 protein, expressed in oolemma, are known to be essential for sperm-oocyte binding and fusion. Although evidence exists that these two proteins cooperate, their interaction has not yet been demonstrated. Here in, we present Juno and CD9 mutual localization over the surface of mouse metaphase II oocytes captured using the 3D STED super-resolution technique. The precise localization of examined proteins was identified in different compartments of oolemma such as the microvillar membrane, planar membrane between individual microvilli, and the membrane of microvilli-free region. Observed variance in localization of Juno and CD9 was confirmed by analysis of transmission and scanning electron microscopy images, which showed a significant difference in the presence of proteins between selected membrane compartments. Colocalization analysis of super-resolution images based on Pearson's correlation coefficient supported evidence of Juno and CD9 mutual position in the oolemma, which was identified by proximity ligation assay. Importantly, the interaction between Juno and CD9 was detected by co-immunoprecipitation and mass spectrometry in HEK293T/17 transfected cell line. For better understanding of experimental data, mouse Juno and CD9 3D structure were prepared by comparative homology modelling and several protein-protein flexible sidechain dockings were performed using the ClusPro server. The dynamic state of the proteins was studied in real-time at atomic level by molecular dynamics (MD) simulation. Docking and MD simulation predicted Juno-CD9 interactions and stability also suggesting an interactive mechanism. Using the multiscale approach, we detected close proximity of Juno and CD9 within microvillar oolemma however, not in the planar membrane or microvilli-free region. Our findings show yet unidentified Juno and CD9 interaction within the mouse oolemma protein network prior to sperm attachment. These results suggest that a Juno and CD9 interactive network could assist in primary Juno binding to sperm Izumo1 as a prerequisite to subsequent gamete membrane fusion.
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INTRODUCTION: The administration of questionnaires presents an easy way of obtaining important knowledge about phobic patients. However, it is not well known how these subjective measurements correspond to the patient's objective condition. Our study aimed to compare scores on questionnaires and image evaluation to the objective measurements of the behavioral approach test (BAT) and the neurophysiological effect of spiders extracted from fMRI measurements. The objective was to explore how reliably subjective statements about spiders and physiological and behavioral parameters discriminate between phobics and non-phobics, and what are the best predictors of overall brain activation. METHODS: Based on a clinical interview, 165 subjects were assigned to either a "phobic" or low-fear "control" group. Finally, 30 arachnophobic and 32 healthy control subjects (with low fear of spiders) participated in this study. They completed several questionnaires (SPQ, SNAQ, DS-R) and underwent a behavioral approach test (BAT) with a live tarantula. Then, they were measured in fMRI while watching blocks of pictures including spiders and snakes. Finally, the respondents rated all the visual stimuli according to perceived fear. We proposed the Spider Fear Index (SFI) as a value characterizing the level of spider fear, computed based on the fMRI measurements. We then treated this variable as the "neurophysiological effect of spiders" and examined its contribution to the respondents' fear ratings of the stimuli seen during the fMRI using the redundancy analysis (RDA). RESULTS: The results for fear ranks revealed that the SFI, SNAQ, DS-R, and SPQ scores had a significant effect, while BAT and SPQ scores loaded in the same direction of the first multivariate axis. The SFI was strongly correlated with both SPQ and BAT scores in the pooled sample of arachnophobic and healthy control subjects. DISCUSSION: Both SPQ and BAT scores have a high informative value about the subject's fear of spiders and together with subjective emotional evaluation of picture stimuli can be reliable predictors of spider phobia. These parameters provide easy and non-expensive but reliable measurement wherever more expensive devices such as magnetic resonance are not available. However, SFI still reflects individual variability within the phobic group, identifying individuals with higher brain activation, which may relate to more severe phobic reactions or other sources of fMRI signal variability.
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INTRODUCTION: Considered a part of the behavioral immune system (BIS), disgust sensitivity is expected to be adjusting as a response to the actual level of the environmental health risks. METHODS: In this preregistered study, we tested the hypothesis that disgust sensitivity would be higher during the COVID-19 pandemic compared to the pre-pandemic period in pregnant women. In this between-subject study with a longitudinal trend design, we administered the Disgust Scale-Revised to 200 pregnant women before the pandemic and to 350 pregnant women during the pandemic. RESULTS: We found a small but significant effect of the pandemic on disgust sensitivity, such that higher disgust sensitivity was found in women pregnant during the pandemic. This effect was stronger in primiparae, however, the interaction between parity and the pandemic period was not significant. Disgust sensitivity decreased with age. No differences in terms of nausea and vomiting were found between the women pregnant before and during the pandemic. DISCUSSION: Our findings indicate that although BIS is presumed to function as a complex mechanism to prevent health-threatening behaviors, its activation in pregnant women during the COVID-19 pandemic is rather weak.
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Since Darwin proposed that human musicality evolved through sexual selection, empirical evidence has supported intersexual selection as one of the adaptive functions of artistic propensities. However, intrasexual competition has been overlooked. We tested their relative importance by investigating the relationship between the self-perceived talent/expertise in 16 artistic and 2 sports modalities and proxies of intersexual selection (i.e., mate value, mating and parenting efforts, sociosexuality, and number of sexual partners) and intrasexual competition (i.e., aggressiveness, intrasexual competitiveness) in heterosexuals. Participants were 82 Brazilian men, 166 Brazilian women, 146 Czech men, and 458 Czech women (Mage = 26.48, SD = 7.12). Factor analysis revealed five factors: Literary-arts (creative writing, humor, acting/theater/film, poetry, storytelling), Visual-arts (painting/drawing, sculpting, handcrafting, culinary arts, architecture design), Musical-arts (playing/instruments, singing, dance, whistling), Circus-arts (juggling, acrobatics), and Sports (individual, collective). Multivariate General Linear Model (GLM) showed more associations of the arts to intersexual selection in women and to intrasexual selection in men, and overall more relationships in women than in men. In women, literary and musical-arts were related to elevated inter- and intrasexual selections proxies, visual and circus-arts were related to elevated intersexual selection proxies, and sports were related to intrasexual selection proxies. In men, literary-arts and sports were related to elevated inter- and intrasexual selection proxies, musical-arts were related to intrasexual proxies, and circus-arts were related to intersexual proxies; visual-arts did not have predictors. Although present in both sexes, each sexual selection component has different relative importance in each sex. Artisticality functions to attract and maintain long/short-term partners, and to compete with mating rivals.
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- časopisecké články MeSH
Crohn's disease (CD) and ulcerative colitis (UC) are two forms of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), where the role of gut but not skin dysbiosis is well recognized. Inhibitors of TNF have been successful in IBD treatment, but up to a quarter of patients suffer from unpredictable skin adverse events (SkAE). For this purpose, we analyzed temporal dynamics of skin microbiota and serum markers of inflammation and epithelial barrier integrity during anti-TNF therapy and SkAE manifestation in IBD patients. We observed that the skin microbiota signature of IBD patients differs markedly from healthy subjects. In particular, the skin microbiota of CD patients differs significantly from that of UC patients and healthy subjects, mainly in the retroauricular crease. In addition, we showed that anti-TNF-related SkAE are associated with specific shifts in skin microbiota profile and with a decrease in serum levels of L-FABP and I-FABP in IBD patients. For the first time, we showed that shifts in microbial composition in IBD patients are not limited to the gut and that skin microbiota and serum markers of the epithelium barrier may be suitable markers of SkAE during anti-TNF therapy.
