Event-related potentials (ERPs) were recorded to explore the electrophysiological correlates of reward processing in the social comparison context when subjects performed a simple number estimation task that entailed monetary rewards for correct answers. Three social comparison stimulus categories (three relative reward levels/self reward related to the other subject's) were mainly prepared: Self:Other=1:2 (Disadvantageous inequity condition); Self:Other=1:1 (Equity condition); and Self:Other=2:1 (Advantageous inequity condition). Results showed that: both Disadvantageous and Advantageous inequity elicited a more negative ERP deflection (N350-550) than did Equity between 350 and 550 ms, and the generators of N350-550 were localized near the parahippocampal gyrus and the medial frontal/anterior cingulate cortex, which might be related to monitor and control reward prediction error during reward processing. Then, Disadvantageous and Advantageous inequity both elicited a more late negative complex (LNC1 and LNC2) than did Equity between 550 and 750 ms. The generators of LNC1 and LNC2 were both localized near the caudate nucleus, which might be related to reward processing under social comparison.

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Event-related brain potentials (ERPs) were used to examine the electrophysiological effect of working memory (WM) load on involuntary attention caused by a task-irrelevant sound in an auditory-visual distraction paradigm. The different WM loads were manipulated by requiring subjects to remember the order of either three digits (low-load condition) or seven digits (high-load condition), and the irrelevant auditory stimuli consisted of repetitive standard sounds (80%) and environmental novel sounds (20%). We found that the difference waves (novel-minus-standard) showed significant MMN and Novelty-P3 components in the two WM load conditions. The amplitude of MMN increased with increasing the WM load, which indicated a more engaged change detection process under high-load condition. Then, the amplitude of Novelty-P3 was attenuated under high-load condition, which indicated a much reduced involuntary orienting of attention to novel sounds when increasing the WM load. These results indicated the top-down control of involuntary attention might be mainly active at the early change detection stage and the control of the later involuntary orienting of attention might be passive.

A long-term romantic relationship can offer many benefits to committed individuals. Thus, humans possess relationship maintenance mechanisms to protect against threats from those who serve as attractive alternatives or intrasexual rivals. Many studies have indicated that romantic love can act as a commitment device to activate these mechanisms. To examine the attentional bias associated with relationship maintenance among 108 college students (49 single and 59 committed females) in China, we used a semantic priming procedure to activate mental representations associated with romantic love and then asked participants to complete a dot-probe task for the purpose of making a distinction between the engage and disengage components of attention. No significant engaging effects toward attractive faces were observed among committed females, but the following significant disengaging effects were found: when primed with romantic love, single females showed increased attention toward and difficulty in disengaging from attractive male faces, whereas females already in a committed relationship did not alter their attention, remaining as inattentive to attractive alternatives as they were in the baseline condition. In addition, committed females responded to love priming by exhibiting difficulty in disengaging from attractive rivals. The present findings provide evidence in the Chinese cultural context for the existence of early-stage attentional processes in the domain of relationship maintenance that committed Chinese females protected an ongoing relationship by not only being inattentive to attractive males who could serve as attractive alternatives, but also being more attentive to attractive females who could be potential rivals when mental representations associated with romantic love were primed.

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Previous studies have shown that PI3K/GSK-3β/β-catenin signaling pathway plays a vital role in ischemic preconditioning. The present study attempts to evaluate whether PI3K/GSK-3β/β-catenin signaling pathway might be responsible for the cardioprotection in ischemic postconditioning. Male Sprague-Dawley rats underwent 30 min of left anterior descending coronary artery occlusion and 2 h of reperfusion. One hundred twenty rats were randomized into six groups: sham, ischemia/reperfusion (I/R), ischemic postconditioning (Post), 15 μg · kg wortmannin (PI3K inhibitor) plus ischemic postconditioning (Wort + Post), wortmannin plus I/R (Wort + I/R), and 0.6 mg · kg SB216763 (GSK-3β inhibitor) plus I/R (SB + I/R). Wortmannin and SB216763 were administered, respectively, 10 and 5 min before reperfusion. Myocardial infarct size; number of apoptotic cardiomyocytes; total Akt, GSK-3β; phosphorylated Akt, GSK-3β; β-catenin in cytosol and nucleus; and Bcl-2 protein were assessed. It was found that Post and SB + I/R reduced infarct size (32.3% [SD, 2.8%], 32.7% [SD, 2.1%], vs. 53.4% [SD, 3.2%], respectively, P < 0.05) and apoptotic index of cardiomyocytes (23.2% [SD, 1.8%], 23.8% [SD, 1.8%], vs. 47.3% [SD, 5.8%], respectively, P < 0.05); compared with I/R, wortmannin abolished the cardioprotection of ischemic postconditioning. Post and SB + I/R increased phosphorylated Akt, phosphorylated GSK3β, β-catenin in cytosol and nucleus, and Bcl-2 expression versus I/R. These results indicate that ischemic postconditioning could induce myocardial protection via PI3K/GSK-3β/β-catenin signaling pathway, activation of which results in accumulation of β-catenin and upregulation of its target genes Bcl-2.