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Background and objective: The possible negative impact of radical surgery on patients’ health-related quality of life (HRQoL) plays an important role in preoperative counseling. Here, we analyzed the HRQoL of patients treated for upper urinary tract urothelial carcinoma (UTUC) in the context of a single-arm phase 2 multicenter study, in which the safety and efficacy of a single preoperative intravesical instillation with mitomycin C were investigated. Our objective was to investigate early changes in HRQoL in patients undergoing radical surgery for UTUC and identify factors associated with these outcomes. Methods: Patients with pTanyN0-1M0 UTUC were prospectively included. HRQoL was assessed using the European Organisation for Research and Treatment of Cancer Quality of Life Questionnaire C30 (EORTC QLQ-C30) questionnaire at baseline, and at 1 and 3 mo after surgery. A linear mixed model was used to evaluate the changes in HRQoL over time and identify the variables associated with these outcomes. The clinical effect size was used to assess the clinical impact and level of perceptibility of HRQoL changes for clinicians and/or patients based on given thresholds. Key findings and limitations: Between 2017 and 2020, 186 patients were included. At baseline, 1 mo after surgery, and 3 mo after surgery, response rates were 91%, 84%, and 78%, respectively. One month after surgery, a statistically significant and clinically relevant deterioration was observed in physical, role, and social functioning, and for the included symptom scales: constipation, fatigue, and pain. An improvement in emotional functioning was observed. At 3 mo, HRQoL returned to baseline levels, except emotional functioning, which improved at 1 mo and persisted to be better than that before surgery. Age >70 yr was associated with worse physical functioning, but better social and emotional functioning. Male patients reported better emotional functioning than females. Postoperative complications were negatively associated with social functioning. Conclusions and clinical implications: UTUC patients treated with radical surgery experienced a significant, albeit temporary, decline in HRQoL. Three months following surgery, HRQoL outcomes returned to baseline levels. This information can be used to counsel UTUC patients before undergoing radical surgery and contextualize recovery after surgery. Patient summary: We investigated the changes in quality of life as reported by patients who underwent surgery for upper tract urothelial carcinoma (UTUC). We found that patients experienced a decline in quality of life 1 mo after surgery, but this was temporary, with full recovery of quality of life 3 mo after surgery. These findings can help doctors and other medical staff in counseling UTUC patients before undergoing radical surgery.

Aims: To describe pulmonary function 3–6 months following acute COVID-19, to evaluate potential predictors of decreased pulmonary function and to review literature for the effect of COVID-19 on pulmonary function. Materials and methods: A systematic review and cohort study were conducted. Within the P4O2 COVID-19 cohort, 95 patients aged 40–65 years were recruited from outpatient post-COVID-19 clinics in five Dutch hospitals between May 2021–September 2022. At 3–6 months post COVID-19, medical records data and biological samples were collected and questionnaires were administered. In addition, pulmonary function tests (PFTs), including spirometry and transfer factor, were performed. To identify factors associated with PFTs, linear regression analyses were conducted, adjusted for covariates. Results: In PFTs (n = 90), mean ± SD % of predicted was 89.7 ± 18.2 for forced vital capacity (FVC) and 79.8 ± 20.0 for transfer factor for carbon monoxide (DLCO). FVC was

Abstract Background In this study we investigated the expression of vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF), epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) and prostate-specific membrane antigen (PSMA) to analyze their potency as targets for the detection of lymph node (LN) metastases of urothelial carcinoma of the bladder. Methods Antigen expression was determined in 40 samples with urothelial carcinoma and compared to 17 matched samples without metastases by immunohistochemistry. The total immunostaining score (TIS 0–12) was determined as the product of a proportion score (PS 0–4) and intensity score (IS 0–3). Results VEGF expression was high in primary tumor and LN metastases (median TIS 8 in both) and VEGF expression was also seen in LNs without metastases (median TIS 6). EGFR expression was low in primary tumor and LN metastases (median TIS 3 and 2 respectively) and absent in LNs without metastases. PSMA expression was low in samples with urothelial carcinoma (median TIS 2). Conclusion VEGF shows moderate to high expression levels in both primary tumors and LN metastases and could be a candidate as a target agent for imaging modalities of urothelial carcinoma. EGFR and PSMA do show low staining levels in tumor tissue with urothelial carcinoma and do not seem suitable as target agents. Trial registration: The Medical Ethics Review Board of the University Medical Center Groningen approved this study on 14 December 2017 (METc UMCG 2017/639). Trial registration number (UMCG Research Register): 201700868.

Objectives To evaluate the relationship among dysnatraemia at hospital presentation and duration of admission, risk of intensive care unit (ICU) admission and all-cause mortality and to assess the underlying pathophysiological mechanism of hyponatraemia in patients with COVID-19. Our hypothesis is that both hyponatraemia and hypernatraemia at presentation are associated with adverse outcomes.Design Observational study.Setting Secondary care; 11 Dutch hospitals (2 university and 9 general hospitals).Participants An analysis was performed within the retrospective multicentre cohort study COVIDPredict. 7811 patients were included (60% men, 40% women) between 24 February 2020 and 9 August 2022. Patients who were ≥18 years with PCR-confirmed COVID-19 or CT with COVID-19 reporting and data system score≥4 and alternative diagnosis were included. Patients were excluded when serum sodium levels at presentation were not registered in the database or when they had been transferred from another participating hospital.Outcome measures We studied demographics, medical history, symptoms and outcomes. Patients were stratified according to serum sodium concentration and urinary sodium excretion.Results Hyponatraemia was present in 2677 (34.2%) patients and hypernatraemia in 126 (1.6%) patients. Patients with hyponatraemia presented more frequently with diarrhoea, lower blood pressure and tachycardia. Hyponatraemia was, despite a higher risk for ICU admission (OR 1.27 (1.11–1.46; p

Abstract Vocal expression of emotions has been observed across species and could provide a non-invasive and reliable means to assess animal emotions. We investigated if pig vocal indicators of emotions revealed in previous studies are valid across call types and contexts, and could potentially be used to develop an automated emotion monitoring tool. We performed an analysis of an extensive and unique dataset of low (LF) and high frequency (HF) calls emitted by pigs across numerous commercial contexts from birth to slaughter (7414 calls from 411 pigs). Our results revealed that the valence attributed to the contexts of production (positive versus negative) affected all investigated parameters in both LF and HF. Similarly, the context category affected all parameters. We then tested two different automated methods for call classification; a neural network revealed much higher classification accuracy compared to a permuted discriminant function analysis (pDFA), both for the valence (neural network: 91.5%; pDFA analysis weighted average across LF and HF (cross-classified): 61.7% with a chance level at 50.5%) and context (neural network: 81.5%; pDFA analysis weighted average across LF and HF (cross-classified): 19.4% with a chance level at 14.3%). These results suggest that an automated recognition system can be developed to monitor pig welfare on-farm.

Introduction Radical cystectomy (RC) is the standard treatment for patients with non-metastatic muscle-invasive bladder cancer, as well as for patients with therapy refractory high-risk non-muscle invasive bladder cancer. However, 50–65% of patients undergoing RC experience perioperative complications. The risk, severity and impact of these complications is associated with a patient’s preoperative cardiorespiratory fitness, nutritional and smoking status and presence of anxiety and depression. There is emerging evidence supporting multimodal prehabilitation as a strategy to reduce the risk of complications and improve functional recovery after major cancer surgery. However, for bladder cancer the evidence is still limited. The aim of this study is to investigate the superiority of a multimodal prehabilitation programme versus standard-of-care in terms of reducing perioperative complications in patients with bladder cancer undergoing RC.Methods and analysis This multicentre, open label, prospective, randomised controlled trial, will include 154 patients with bladder cancer undergoing RC. Patients are recruited from eight hospitals in The Netherlands and will be randomly (1:1) allocated to the intervention group receiving a structured multimodal prehabilitation programme of approximately 3–6 weeks, or to the control group receiving standard-of-care. The primary outcome is the proportion of patients who develop one or more grade ≥2 complications (according to the Clavien-Dindo classification) within 90 days of surgery. Secondary outcomes include cardiorespiratory fitness, length of hospital stay, health-related quality of life, tumour tissue biomarkers of hypoxia, immune cell infiltration and cost-effectiveness. Data collection will take place at baseline, before surgery and 4 and 12 weeks after surgery.Ethics and dissemination Ethical approval for this study was granted by the Medical Ethics Committee NedMec (Amsterdam, The Netherlands) under reference number 22–595/NL78792.031.22. Results of the study will be published in international peer-reviewed journals.Trial registration number NCT05480735.

Background and purpose — Anterior knee pain is common after tibial nailing. Its origin is poorly understood. Injury of the infrapatellar nerve is a possible cause. In this randomized controlled trial we compared changes in knee pain after an infrapatellar nerve block with lidocaine or placebo in patients with persistent knee pain after tibial nailing. Patients and methods — Patients with chronic knee pain after tibial nailing were randomized to an infrapatellar nerve block with 5 ml 2% lidocaine or placebo (sodium chloride 0.9%), after which they performed 8 daily activities. Before and after these activities, pain was recorded using a numeric rating scale (NRS; 0–10). Primary endpoint was the change in pain during kneeling after the infrapatellar nerve block. Secondary outcomes were changes in pain after the nerve block during the other activities. Results — 34 patients (age 18–62 years) were equally randomized. A significant reduction of the NRS for kneeling pain with an infrapatellar nerve block with lidocaine was found compared with placebo (–4.5 [range –10 to –1] versus –1 [–9 to 2]; p = 0.002). There were no differences between the treatments for the NRS values for pain during other activities. Interpretation — Compared with placebo, an infrapatellar nerve block with lidocaine was more effective in reducing pain during kneeling in patients with chronic knee pain after tibial nailing. Our findings support the contention that kneeling pain after tibial nailing is a peripheral nerve-related problem.

Monitoring dairy cattle behavior can improve the detection of health and welfare issues for early interventions. Often commercial sensors do not provide researchers with sufficient raw and open data; therefore, the aim of this study was to develop an open and customizable system to classify cattle behaviors. A 3D accelerometer device and host-board (i.e., sensor node) were embedded in a case and fixed on a dairy cow collar. It was developed to work in two modes: (1) acquisition mode, where a mobile application supported the raw data collection during observations; and (2) operating mode, where data was processed and sent to a gateway and on the cloud. Accelerations were sampled at 25 Hz and behaviors were classified in 10-min windows. Several algorithms were trained with the 108 h of behavioral data acquired from 32 cows on 3 farms, and after evaluating their computational/memory complexity and accuracy, the Decision Tree algorithm was selected. This model detected standing, lying, eating, and ruminating with an average accuracy of 85.12%. The open nature of this system enables for the addition of other functions (e.g., real-time localization of cows) and the integration with other information sources, e.g., microenvironment and air quality sensors, thereby enhancing data processing potential.

In humans, speech perception is lateralized, with the left hemisphere of the brain dominant in processing the communicative content and the right hemisphere dominant in processing the emotional content. However, still little is known about such a division of tasks in other species. We therefore investigated lateralized processing of communicative and emotionally relevant calls in a social mammal, the pig (Sus scrofa). Based on the contralateral connection between ears and hemispheres, we compared the behavioural and cardiac responses of 36 young male pigs during binaural and monaural (left or right) playback to the same sounds. The playback stimuli were calls of social isolation and physical restraint, whose communicative and emotional relevance, respectively, were validated prior to the test by acoustic analyses and during binaural playbacks. There were indications of lateralized processing mainly in the initial detection (left head-turn bias, indicating right hemispheric dominance) of the more emotionally relevant restraint calls. Conversely, there were indications of lateralized processing only in the appraisal (increased attention during playback to the right ear) of the more communicative relevant isolation calls. This implies differential involvement of the hemispheres in the auditory processing of vocalizations in pigs and thereby hints at similarities in the auditory processing of vocal communication in non-human animals and speech in humans. Therefore, these findings provide interesting new insight in the evolution of human language and auditory lateralization.

Abstract Purpose The histopathology of sepsis-associated acute kidney injury (AKI) in critically ill patients remains an understudied area. Previous studies have identified that acute tubular necrosis (ATN) is not the only driver of sepsis-AKI. The focus of this study was to identify additional candidate processes that may drive sepsis-AKI. To do this we immunohistochemically characterized the histopathological and cellular features in various compartments of human septic kidneys. Methods We studied the following histopathological features: leukocyte subsets, fibroblast activation, cellular proliferation, apoptosis, and fibrin deposition in the glomerulus and the tubulointerstitium in human post-mortem kidney biopsy tissue. Biopsy tissue samples from 27 patients with sepsis-AKI were collected 33 min (range 24–150) after death in the ICU. The unaffected part of the kidneys from 12 patients undergoing total nephrectomy as a result of renal carcinoma served as controls. Results Immunohistochemical analysis revealed the presence of more neutrophils and macrophages in the glomeruli and more neutrophils in the tubulointerstitium of renal tissue from patients with sepsis compared to control renal tissue. Type II macrophages were predominant, with some macrophages expressing both type I and type II markers. In contrast, there were almost no macrophages found in control kidneys. The number of activated (myo)fibroblasts was low in the glomeruli of sepsis-AKI kidneys, yet this was not observed in the tubulointerstitium. Cell proliferation and fibrin deposition were more pronounced in the glomeruli and tubulointerstitium of sepsis-AKI than in control kidneys. Conclusions The extensive heterogeneity of observations among and within patients emphasizes the need to thoroughly characterize patients with sepsis-AKI in a large sample of renal biopsy tissue from patients with sepsis.

Background: Following radical nephro-ureterectomy for urothelial carcinoma of the upper urinary tract (UUT), the reported bladder recurrence rate of urothelial carcinoma is 22–47%. A single intravesical instillation of chemotherapy within 10 days following nephro-ureterectomy has the potential to decrease the risk of a bladder recurrence significantly. Despite recommendation by the European Association of Urology guideline to administer a single instillation postoperatively, the compliance rate is low because the risk of extravasation of chemotherapy. Aim: To reduce the risk of bladder cancer recurrence by a single intravesical instillation of Mitomycin immediately (within 3 h) before radical nephro-ureterectomy or partial ureterectomy. Methods: Adult patients (age ≥ 18 years) with a (suspicion of a) urothelial carcinoma of the UUT undergoing radical nephro-ureterectomy or partial ureterectomy will be eligible and will receive a single intravesical instillation of Mitomycin within 3 h before surgery. In total, 170 patients will be included in this prospective, observational study. Follow-up will be according to current guidelines. Results: The primary endpoint is the bladder cancer recurrence rate up to two years after surgery. Secondary endpoints are: a) the compliance rate; b) oncological outcome; c) possible side-effects; d) the quality of life; e) the calculation of costs of a single neoadjuvant instillation with Mitomycin and f) molecular characterization of UUT tumors and intravesical recurrences. Conclusions: A single intravesical instillation of Mitomycin before radical nephro-ureterectomy or partial ureterectomy may reduce the risk of a bladder recurrence in patients treated for UUT urothelial carcinoma and will circumvent the disadvantages of current therapy.

Dairy cow behavior is affected by external and endogenous factors, including time of year, barn microclimate, time of day and housing. However, little is known about the combined effects of these factors. Data were collected on eight farms in Northern Italy during summer, winter and a temperate season. The temperature-humidity index (THI) was recorded using environmental sensors, whereas cow behavior was monitored using leg accelerometers and cameras. Period, time of day and their interaction all significantly affected lying, standing and feeding behavior. However, although THI had a significant negative effect on lying and a positive effect on standing during daytime (all p < 0.001), during nighttime, it only had a significant negative effect on lying duration and mean lying bout duration (p < 0.001 for both). There was also significant variation between farms in all behavioral parameters, as well as interactions with period and time of day. For instance, farm differences in lying duration were more pronounced during daytime than during nighttime. These findings show how housing can interact with other factors, such as period of the year and time of day, and illustrate the influence of barn structure and farm management on cow behavior and, consequently, their welfare.

Imaging modalities using tumor-directed monoclonal antibodies may be of value to improve the pre- and intraoperative detection and resection of lymph node (LN) metastatic disease in penile squamous cell carcinoma (PSCC). We investigated the expression of prostate-specific membrane antigen (PSMA), vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF), epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) and epithelial cell adhesion molecule (EpCAM) to analyze their potency for diagnostic applications. Antigen expression was determined in primary tumors and LNs with and without metastases of 22 patients with PSCC. The total immunostaining score (TIS, 0–12) was determined as the product of a proportion score (PS, 0–4) and an intensity score (IS, 0–3). EGFR and VEGF expression were high in primary tumor (median TIS 8) and LN metastases (median TIS 6 and 8, respectively). No EGFR expression was seen in LNs without metastases. However, LNs without metastases did show VEGF expression (median TIS 6). No EpCAM or PSMA expression was seen in PSCC. This study shows that VEGF and EGFR expression is moderate to high in LN metastases of PSCC. Both VEGF and EGFR warrant further clinical evaluation to determine their value as a target for pre- and intraoperative imaging modalities in the detection of LN metastases in PSCC.

For on-farm welfare assessment many automatic methods have been developed to detect indicators of reduced welfare. However, there is still a need to integrate data from single sources to obtain a complete picture of the welfare of an animal. This review offers a basis for developing integrated automatic systems to assess dairy cow welfare by providing an overview of the main issues that challenge cow welfare (e.g., lameness) and of well-established indicators that could detect these issues on the farm. Based on a literature review of 4 reviews on cow welfare in general and 48 reviews on single welfare issues, we identified 18 different major welfare issues and 76 matching indicators that could be detected automatically on the farm. Several indicators, e.g., feed intake, showed a consistent association with welfare across many different issues. Although some of these indicators are discussed critically, this means there are many indicators that potentially could detect reduced welfare in general. Other types of indicators could detect one specific welfare issue, e.g., increased respiratory rate for heat stress. These different types of indicators combined provide a basis to develop integrated automatic systems that ultimately would help farmers to detect welfare problems at an early stage.

Animal models are a valuable tool in preclinical research. However, limited predictivity of human biological responses in the conventional models has stimulated the search for reliable preclinical tools that show translational robustness. Here, we used precision-cut kidney slices (PCKS) as a model of renal fibrosis and investigated its predictive capacity for screening the effects of anti-fibrotics. Murine and human PCKS were exposed to TGFβ or PDGF pathway inhibitors with established anti-fibrotic efficacy. For each treatment modality, we evaluated whether it affected: (1) culture-induced collagen type I gene expression and interstitial accumulation; (2) expression of markers of TGFβ and PDGF signaling; and (3) expression of inflammatory markers. We summarized the outcomes of published in vivo animal and human studies testing the three inhibitors in renal fibrosis, and drew a parallel to the PCKS data. We showed that the responses of murine PCKS to anti-fibrotics highly corresponded with the known in vivo responses observed in various animal models of renal fibrosis. Moreover, our results suggested that human PCKS can be used to predict drug efficacy in clinical trials. In conclusion, our study demonstrated that the PCKS model is a powerful predictive tool for ex vivo screening of putative drugs for renal fibrosis.

PURPOSE: To evaluate the pattern of care in patients with high risk non muscle invasive bladder cancer (NMIBC) in the Comprehensive Cancer Center North-Netherlands (CCCN) and to assess factors associated with the choice of treatment, recurrence and progression free survival rates. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Retrospective analysis of 412 patients with newly diagnosed high risk NMIBC. Clinical, demographic and follow-up data were obtained from the CCCN Cancer Registry and a detailed medical record review. Uni and multivariate analysis was performed to identify factors related to choice of treatment and 5 year recurrence and progression free survival. RESULTS: 74/412 (18%) patients with high risk NMIBC underwent a transurethral resection (TUR) as single treatment. Adjuvant treatment after TUR was performed in 90.7% of the patients treated in teaching hospitals versus 71.8 % in non-teaching hospitals (p < 0.001). In multivariate analysis, age (60-79 years OR 0.40 and > 80 years OR 0.1 p = 0.001) and treatment in non-teaching hospitals (OR 0.25; p < 0.001) were associated with less adjuvant treatment after TUR. Tumor recurrence occurred in 191/392 (49%) and progression in 84 /392 (21.4%) patients. The mean 5-years progression free survival was 71.6% (95% CI 65.5-76.8). CONCLUSION: In this pattern of care study in high risk NMIBC, 18% of the patients were treated with TUR as single treatment. Age and treatment in non-teaching hospitals were associated with less adjuvant treatment after TUR. None of the variables sex, age, comorbidity, hospital type, stage and year of treatment was associated with 5 year recurrence or progression rates.

Recent ethical decision-making models suggest that individuals’ own view of their morality is malleable rather than static, responding to their (im)moral actions and reflections about the world around them. Yet no construct currently exists to represent the malleable state of a person’s moral self-image (MSI). In this investigation, we define this construct, as well as develop a scale to measure it. Across five studies, we show that feedback about the moral self alters an individual’s MSI as measured by our scale. We also find that MSI is related to, but distinct from, related constructs, including moral identity, self-esteem, and moral disengagement. In Study 1, we administered the MSI scale and several other relevant scales to demonstrate convergent and discriminant validity. In Study 2, we examine the relationship between the MSI and one’s ought versus ideal self. In Studies 3 and 4, we find that one’s MSI is affected in the predicted directions by manipulated feedback about the moral self, including feedback related to social comparisons of moral behavior (Study 3) and feedback relative to one’s own moral ideal (Study 4). Lastly, Study 5 provides evidence that the recall of one’s moral or immoral behavior alters people’s MSI in the predicted directions. Taken together, these studies suggest that the MSI is malleable and responds to individuals’ moral and immoral actions in the outside world. As such, the MSI is an important variable to consider in the study of moral and immoral behavior.

Background: Antimicrobial resistance rates are increasing. This is, among others, caused by incorrect or inappropriate use of antimicrobials. To target this, a multidisciplinary Antimicrobial Stewardship-Team (A-Team) was implemented at the University Medical Center Groningen on a urology ward. Goal of this study is to evaluate the clinical effects of the case-audits done by this team, looking at length of stay (LOS) and antimicrobial use.Methods: Automatic e-mail alerts were sent after 48 hours of consecutive antimicrobial use triggering the case-audits, consisting of an A-Team member visiting the ward, discussing the patient’s therapy with the bed-side physician and together deciding on further treatment based on available diagnostics and guidelines. Clinical effects of the audits were evaluated through an Interrupted Time Series analysis and a retrospective historic cohort. Results: A significant systemic reduction of antimicrobial consumption for all patients on the ward, both with and without case-audits was observed. Furthermore, LOS for patients with case-audits who were admitted primarily due to infections decreased to 6.20 days (95% CI: 5.59-6.81) compared to the historic cohort (7.57 days; 95% CI: 6.92-8.21) (p=0.012). Antimicrobial consumption decreased for these patients from 8.17 DDD/patient (95% CI: 7.10-9.24) to 5.93 DDD/patient (95% CI: 5.02-6.83) (p=0.008). For patients with severe underlying diseases (e.g. cancer) these outcome measures remained unchanged.Conclusions: The evaluation showed a considerable positive impact. Antibiotic use of the whole ward was reduced, transcending the intervened patients. Furthermore, LOS and mean antimicrobial consumption for a subgroup was reduced, thereby improving patient care and potentially lowering resistance rates.

Previous behavioral studies have shown that initial ownership influences individuals' fairness consideration and other-regarding behavior. However, it is not entirely clear whether initial ownership influences the brain activity when a recipient evaluates the fairness of asset distribution. In this study, we randomly assigned the bargaining property (monetary reward) to either the allocator or the recipient in the ultimatum game and let participants of the study, acting as recipients, receive either disadvantageous unequal, equal, or advantageous unequal offers from allocators while the event-related potentials (ERPs) were recorded. Behavioral results showed that participants were more likely to reject disadvantageous unequal and equal offers when they initially owned the property as compared to when they did not. The two types of unequal offers evoked more negative going ERPs (the MFN) than the equal offers in an early time window and the differences were not modulated by the initial ownership. In a late time window, however, the P300 responses to division schemes were affected not only by the type of unequal offers but also by whom the property was initially assigned to. These findings suggest that while the MFN may function as a general mechanism that evaluates whether the offer is consistent or inconsistent with the equity rule, the P300 is sensitive to top-down controlled processes, into which factors related to the allocation of attentional resources, including initial ownership and personal interests, come to play.

Previous studies have shown that social comparison influences individual’s fairness consideration and other-regarding behavior. However, it is not clear how social comparison affects the brain activity in evaluating fairness during asset distribution. In this study, participants, acting as recipients in the ultimatum game, were informed not only of offers to themselves but also of the average amount of offers in other allocator-recipient dyads. Behavioral results showed that the participants were more likely to reject division schemes when they were offered less than the other recipients, especially when the offers were highly unequal. Event-related brain potentials (ERPs) recorded from the participants showed that highly unequal offers elicited more negative going medial frontal negativity (MFN) than moderately unequal offers in an early time window (270-360 ms) and this effect was not significantly modulated by social comparison. In a later time window (450-650 ms), however, the late positive potentials (LPPs) were more positive for moderately unequal offers than for highly unequal offers when the other recipients were offered less than the participants, whereas this distinction disappeared when the other recipients were offered the same as or more than the participants. These findings suggest that the brain activity in evaluating fairness in asset division entails both an earlier (semi-) automatic process in which the brain responds to fairness at an abstract level and a later appraisal process in which factors related to social comparison and fairness norms come into play.

BACKGROUND: Auditory laterality is suggested to be characterized by a left hemisphere dominance for the processing of conspecific communication. Nevertheless, there are indications that auditory laterality can also be affected by communicative significance, emotional valence and social recognition. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: In order to gain insight into the effects of caller characteristics on auditory laterality in the early primate brain, 17 gray mouse lemurs were tested in a head turn paradigm. The head turn paradigm was established to examine potential functional hemispheric asymmetries on the behavioral level. Subjects were presented with playbacks of two conspecific call types (tsak calls and trill calls) from senders differing in familiarity (unfamiliar vs. familiar) and sex (same sex vs. other sex). Based on the head turn direction towards these calls, evidence was found for a right ear/left hemisphere dominance for the processing of calls of the other sex (Binomial test: p = 0.021, N = 10). Familiarity had no effect on the orientation biases. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE: The findings in this study support the growing consensus that auditory laterality is not only determined by the acoustic processing of conspecific communication, but also by other factors like the sex of the sender.

Abstract Background The origin of human handedness and its evolution in primates is presently under debate. Current hypotheses suggest that body posture (postural origin hypothesis and bipedalism hypothesis) have an important impact on the evolution of handedness in primates. To gain insight into the origin of manual lateralization in primates, we studied gray mouse lemurs, suggested to represent the most ancestral primate condition. First, we investigated hand preference in a simple food grasping task to explore the importance of hand usage in a natural foraging situation. Second, we explored the influence of body posture by applying a forced food grasping task with varying postural demands (sit, biped, cling, triped). Results The tested mouse lemur population did not prefer to use their hands alone to grasp for food items. Instead, they preferred to pick them up using a mouth-hand combination or the mouth alone. If mouth usage was inhibited, they showed an individual but no population level handedness for all four postural forced food grasping tasks. Additionally, we found no influence of body posture on hand preference in gray mouse lemurs. Conclusion Our results do not support the current theories of primate handedness. Rather, they propose that ecological adaptation indicated by postural habit and body size of a given species has an important impact on hand preference in primates. Our findings suggest that small-bodied, quadrupedal primates, adapted to the fine branch niche of dense forests, prefer mouth retrieval of food and are less manually lateralized than large-bodied species which consume food in a more upright, and less stable body posture.