| 1. |
- Beyer, Sarah, 1982-, et al.
(författare)
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Fluorescent Molecularly Imprinted Polymer Layers against Sialic Acid on Silica-Coated Polystyrene Cores — Assessment of the Binding Behavior to Cancer Cells
- 2022
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Ingår i: Cancers. - : MDPI. - 2072-6694. ; 14:8
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Sialic acid (SA) is a monosaccharide usually linked to the terminus of glycan chains on the cell surface. It plays a crucial role in many biological processes, and hypersialylation is a common feature in cancer. Lectins are widely used to analyze the cell surface expression of SA. However, these protein molecules are usually expensive and easily denatured, which calls for the development of alternative glycan-specific receptors and cell imaging technologies. In this study, SA-imprinted fluorescent core-shell molecularly imprinted polymer particles (SA-MIPs) were employed to recognize SA on the cell surface of cancer cell lines. The SA-MIPs improved suspensibility and scattering properties compared with previously used core-shell SA-MIPs. Although SA-imprinting was performed using SA without preference for the α2,3-and α2,6-SA forms, we screened the cancer cell lines analyzed using the lectins Maackia Amurensis Lectin I (MAL I, α2,3-SA) and Sambucus Nigra Lectin (SNA, α2,6-SA). Our results show that the selected cancer cell lines in this study presented a varied binding behavior with the SA-MIPs. The binding pattern of the lectins was also demonstrated. Moreover, two different pentavalent SA conjugates were used to inhibit the binding of the SA-MIPs to breast, skin, and lung cancer cell lines, demonstrating the specificity of the SA-MIPs in both flow cytometry and confocal fluorescence microscopy. We concluded that the synthesized SA-MIPs might be a powerful future tool in the diagnostic analysis of various cancer cells.
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| 2. |
- Hansson, Kajsa, 1991-
(författare)
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Moral Illusions
- 2022
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Just as optical illusions can trick our visual senses, our moral sense can be misguided by moral illusions. In this thesis, I investigate whether moral illusions can arise from mental shortcuts (availability bias), cognitive biases (attribution bias), contextual factors (possibility to avoid information), and decision rules (democratic decision-making).The results in the thesis provide two main findings. First, I find that moral illusions occur in competitive situations where many people compete for the same reward. In Essay I, I find that inaccurate beliefs about procedural fairness can motivate people to act selfishly, and that simple information cues about procedural fairness can reduce such behavior. In Essay II, I demonstrate that increased confidence has polarizing effects on meritocratic beliefs and that success (as opposed to failure) decreases preferences for redistribution. Second, the results show that moral behavior can be surprisingly similar across contextual factors. In Essay III, I find that the possibility to avoid information about other people’s the efforts has limited effects on selfish behavior. In Essay IV, the results show no evidence that democratic decision-making, as opposed to individual decision making, increases selfish and immoral behavior.The results in the thesis suggest that our moral sense have many similarities with our visual perception. In most cases, it is not significantly affected by contextual factors. However, when the information is vague or uncertain, the brain sometimes fills in missing information and creates images that does not match with reality. The analogy between optical illusions and moral illusion can help us to better understand our own, and others’, moral behavior. We may not always agree with everyone’s interpretations of reality, but we can understand where they come from.
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| 3. |
- Hansson, Kajsa, 1991-, et al.
(författare)
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Voting and (im)moral behavior
- 2022
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Ingår i: Scientific Reports. - : NATURE PORTFOLIO. - 2045-2322. ; 12:1
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Due to diffusion of responsibility, majority voting may induce immoral and selfish behavior because voters are rarely solely responsible for the outcome. Across three behavioral experiments (two preregistered; n = 1983), we test this hypothesis in situations where there is a conflict between morality and material self-interest. Participants were randomly assigned to make decisions about extracting money from a charity either in an experimental referendum or individually. We find no evidence that voting induces immoral behavior. Neither do we find that people self-servingly distort their beliefs about their responsibility for the outcome when they vote. If anything, the results suggest that voting makes people less immoral.
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| 4. |
- Maguire, Allegra, et al.
(författare)
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COVID-19 and Politically Motivated Reasoning
- 2022
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Ingår i: Medical decision making. - : Sage Publications Inc. - 0272-989X .- 1552-681X. ; 42:8, s. 1078-1086
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Background. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the world witnessed a partisan segregation of beliefs toward the global health crisis and its management. Politically motivated reasoning, the tendency to interpret information in accordance with individual motives to protect valued beliefs rather than objectively considering the facts, could represent a key process involved in the polarization of attitudes. The objective of this study was to explore politically motivated reasoning when participants assess information regarding COVID-19. Design. We carried out a preregistered online experiment using a diverse sample (N = 1500) from the United States. Both Republicans and Democrats assessed the same COVID-19-related information about the health effects of lockdowns, social distancing, vaccination, hydroxychloroquine, and wearing face masks. Results. At odds with our prestated hypothesis, we found no evidence in line with politically motivated reasoning when interpreting numerical information about COVID-19. Moreover, we found no evidence supporting the idea that numeric ability or cognitive sophistication bolster politically motivated reasoning in the case of COVID-19. Instead, our findings suggest that participants base their assessment on prior beliefs of the matter. Conclusions. Our findings suggest that politically polarized attitudes toward COVID-19 are more likely to be driven by lack of reasoning than politically motivated reasoning-a finding that opens potential avenues for combating political polarization about important health care topics.
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| 5. |
- Persson, Emil, 1982-, et al.
(författare)
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The effect of fast and slow decision-making on equity–efficiency tradeoffs and moral repugnance
- 2023
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Ingår i: Royal Society Open Science. - London, United Kingdom : The Royal Society Publishing. - 2054-5703. ; 10:9
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Fast-and-slow models of decision-making are commonly invoked to explain economic behaviour. However, past research has focused on human cooperation and generosity and thus largely overlooked situations where there are sharp conflicts between efficiency and equality, or between efficiency and more intuitive moral values (repugnance). Here, we contribute to fill this gap in the literature. We conducted a preregistered experiment (n = 1500 recruited from Prolific) to assess the effects of fast, intuitive decisions, under time pressure versus slow, deliberate decisions, under time delay, on (i) people's distributional preferences and (ii) their attitudes toward repugnant transactions. The results show increased preference for equality and decreased preference for efficiency under time pressure, but no effects on moral repugnance. Exploratory analyses revealed that most of the observed treatment effects in our data were accounted for by women. Our results provide some support for theories that associate controlled cognition with concern for efficiency, and intuitive, emotional responses with inequality aversion.
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| 6. |
- Persson, Emil, 1982-, et al.
(författare)
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Using quantitative trait in adults with ADHD to test predictions of dual-process theory
- 2020
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Ingår i: Scientific Reports. - : Nature Publishing Group. - 2045-2322. ; 10:1
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Dual-process theory is a widely utilized modelling tool in the behavioral sciences. It conceptualizes decision-making as an interaction between two types of cognitive processes, some of them fast and intuitive, others slow and reflective. We make a novel contribution to this literature by exploring differences between adults with clinically diagnosed ADHD and healthy controls for a wide range of behaviors. Given the clinical picture and nature of ADHD symptoms, we had a strong a priori reason to expect differences in intuitive vs reflective processing; and thus an unusually strong case for testing the predictions of dual-process theory. We found mixed results, with overall weaker effects than expected, except for risk taking, where individuals with ADHD showed increased domain sensitivity for gains vs losses. Some of our predictions were supported by the data but other patterns are more difficult to reconcile with theory. On balance, our results provide only limited empirical support for using dual-process theory to understand basic social and economic decision-making.
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| 7. |
- Pietrzak, Michal, 1987-, et al.
(författare)
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Ghrelin decreases sensitivity to negative feedback and increases prediction-error related caudate activity in humans, a randomized controlled trial
- 2024
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Ingår i: Neuropsychopharmacology. - : Springer Science+Business Media B.V.. - 0893-133X .- 1740-634X. ; 49, s. 1042-1049
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The stomach-derived hormone ghrelin plays not only a role in feeding, starvation, and survival, but it has been suggested to also be involved in the stress response, in neuropsychiatric conditions, and in alcohol and drug use disorders. Mechanisms related to reward processing might mediate ghrelin's broader effects on complex behaviors, as indicated by animal studies and mostly correlative human studies. Here, using a within-subject double-blind placebo-controlled design with intravenous ghrelin infusion in healthy volunteers (n = 30), we tested whether ghrelin alters sensitivity to reward and punishment in a reward learning task. Parameters were derived from a computational model of participants' task behavior. The reversal learning task with monetary rewards was performed during functional brain imaging to investigate ghrelin effects on brain signals related to reward prediction errors. Compared to placebo, ghrelin decreased punishment sensitivity (t = -2.448, p = 0.021), while reward sensitivity was unaltered (t = 0.8, p = 0.43). We furthermore found increased prediction-error related activity in the dorsal striatum during ghrelin administration (region of interest analysis: t-values >= 4.21, p-values <= 0.044). Our results support a role for ghrelin in reward processing that extends beyond food-related rewards. Reduced sensitivity to negative outcomes and increased processing of prediction errors may be beneficial for food foraging when hungry but could also relate to increased risk taking and impulsivity in the broader context of addictive behaviors.
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| 8. |
- Strand, Liam, 1996-, et al.
(författare)
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Withdrawing versus Withholding Treatments in Medical Reimbursement Decisions: A Study on Public Attitudes
- 2024
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Ingår i: Medical decision making. - : Sage Publications. - 0272-989X .- 1552-681X. ; 44:6, s. 641-648
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- BackgroundThe use of policies in medical treatment reimbursement decisions, in which only future patients are affected, prompts a moral dilemma: is there an ethical difference between withdrawing and withholding treatment?DesignThrough a preregistered behavioral experiment involving 1,067 participants, we tested variations in public attitudes concerning withdrawing and withholding treatments at both the bedside and policy levels.ResultsIn line with our first hypothesis, participants were more supportive of rationing decisions presented as withholding treatments compared with withdrawing treatments. Contrary to our second prestated hypothesis, participants were more supportive of decisions to withdraw treatment made at the bedside level compared with similar decisions made at the policy level.ImplicationsOur findings provide behavioral insights that help explain the common use of policies affecting only future patients in medical reimbursement decisions, despite normative concerns of such policies. In addition, our results may have implications for communication strategies when making decisions regarding treatment reimbursement.
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| 9. |
- Tinghög, Gustav, 1979-, et al.
(författare)
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Medical Homo Ignorans, Shared Decision Making, and Affective Paternalism: Balancing Emotion and Analysis in Health Care Choices
- 2024
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Ingår i: Medical decision making. - : Sagamore Publishing. - 0272-989X .- 1552-681X. ; 44:6, s. 611-613
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Tidskriftsartikel (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- In shared decision-making (SDM), the role of emotions and information avoidance is crucial yet often overlooked. We highlight three key aspects of how emotions impact medical decision-making that physicians must understand and utilize for SDM to effectively contribute to sense-making: (i) prominence thinking, (ii) risk as feeling versus risk as analysis, and (iii) preferences for more versus less healthcare. We introduce the novel concept of affective paternalism as a tool for physicians to help patients navigate their emotions by providing not only factual information but also emotional support and guidance. This approach involves recognizing and addressing patients' fears, hopes, and anxieties, thereby helping them process information more comprehensively. By acknowledging and addressing the emotional components inherent in medical decisions, affective paternalism helps patients make more informed and balanced choices, aligning treatment decisions with their overall well-being.
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