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Background Streptococcus mutans is the principal etiological agent of human dental caries. The major virulence factors of S. mutans are acid production, acid tolerance, extracellular polysaccharide (EPS) synthesis and biofilm formation. The aim of this study is to evaluate the effect of resveratrol, a natural compound, on virulence properties of S. mutans . Results Resveratrol at sub-MIC levels significantly decreased acid production and acid tolerance, inhibited synthesis of water-soluble polysaccharide and water-insoluble polysaccharide, compromised biofilm formation. Related virulence gene expression ( ldh, relA, gtfC, comDE ) was down-regulated with increasing concentrations of resveratrol. Conclusions Resveratrol has an inhibitory effect on S. mutans cariogenic virulence properties and it represents a promising anticariogenic agent.

Transient painful stimuli could induce suppression of alpha oscillatory activities and enhancement of gamma oscillatory activities that also could be greatly modulated by attention. Here, we attempted to characterize changes in cortical activities during tonic heat pain perception and investigated the influence of directed/distracted attention on these responses. We collected 5-minute long continuous Electroencephalography (EEG) data from 38 healthy volunteers during four conditions presented in a counterbalanced order: (A) resting condition; (B) innoxious-distracted condition; (C) noxious-distracted condition; (D) noxious-attended condition. The effects of tonic heat pain stimulation and selective attention on oscillatory activities were investigated by comparing the EEG power spectra among the four experimental conditions and assessing the relationship between spectral power difference and subjective pain intensity. The change of oscillatory activities in condition D was characterized by stable and persistent decrease of alpha oscillation power over contralateral-central electrodes and widespread increase of gamma oscillation power, which were even significantly correlated with subjective pain intensity. Since EEG responses in the alpha and gamma frequency band were affected by attention in different manners, they are likely related to different aspects of the multidimensional sensory experience of pain. The observed contralateral-central alpha suppression (conditions D vs. B and D vs. C) may reflect primarily a top-down cognitive process such as attention, while the widespread gamma enhancement (conditions D vs. A) may partly reflect tonic pain processing, representing the summary effects of bottom-up stimulus-related and top-down subject-driven cognitive processes.

When considering the “beauty-is-good” stereotype, facial attractiveness should facilitate empathy for pain. On the other hand, having in mind the “threat value of pain” hypothesis, pain cues would be more salient, and thus, its processing would not suffer influence by facial attractiveness. The event-related potential (ERP) allows investigating if one of these theories could predict individuals’ responses regarding the perception of pain or attractiveness in others’ faces. We tracked 35 participants’ reactions to pictures depicting more and less attractive faces displayed in a painful and non-painful condition. Each participant completed the following two tasks when presented the images of faces: (1) the Pain Judgment Task, in which participants should rate the pain levels, and (2) the Attractiveness Judgment Task, in which participants should rate the attractiveness. Results showed that participants exhibited differences rating more and less attractive faces in the non-painful pictures, but not in the painful pictures. These results were observed in P3 and LPC amplitudes in the Pain Judgment Task, as well as in N170 and P2 amplitudes in the Attractive Judgment Task. Our results suggested that both explicit and implicit empathic pain processing inhibited the processing of attractiveness perception. These findings supported the “threat value of pain” hypothesis. Besides, in the Attractive Judgment Task, the N170 and P2 amplitudes for more attractive painful pictures were larger than those for more attractive non-painful pictures. In contrast, no significant difference was found between the amplitudes for painful and non-painful, less attractive pictures. Our findings suggest that explicit facial attractiveness processing for more attractive face images potentiates the implicit empathy for pain processing, therefore partly supporting the “beautiful-is-good” stereotype.

While empathic responses of individuals with autism-spectrum disorder have been reported to be modulated by top-down attention, it remains unclear whether empathy for pain in typically developing individuals with autistic traits also involves such top-down modulation mechanisms. This study employed the autism-spectrum quotient (AQ) to quantify autistic traits in a group of 1,231 healthy adults. Two subset groups (High-AQ and Low-AQ groups) were randomly selected from the highest and lowest 10% AQ scores respectively. We explored whether participants in both groups would differ in their response to others’ pain when their attention was directed toward (A-P tasks) or away (A-N tasks) from pain cues in auditory and visual experimental modalities. Compared to Low-AQ individuals, High-AQ individuals exhibited more suppressed N1 and P2 amplitudes in response to painful vocal cues in auditory A-N tasks. This suggests suppressed attentional and emotional processes of empathy for pain when High-AQ individuals have their attention directed away from others’ pain cues. No significant difference was found between both groups in the auditory A-P task, nor in the visual A-P and A-N tasks. These results suggest that top-down attention modulation of cortical empathic responses to others’ vocal pain is influenced by autistic traits.

IntroductionTropical forests under increasing pressure from land-use change, tourism expansion, and climate stress require management strategies that simultaneously support conservation objectives and sustain human-nature interactions. While ecosystem service research has extensively documented the ecological and health functions of tropical forests, limited attention has been given to how visitors cognitively perceive these functions and how such perceptions shape ecotourists’ health-driven visitation intentions.MethodsAddressing this gap, this study applies the Health Belief Model (HBM) to examine how health risk appraisal, motivational evaluations, perceived barriers, and self-efficacy influence ecotourists’ perceived health benefits and their health-driven intention to visit tropical forest environments. Survey data were collected from 650 adult visitors to tropical forest destinations in Hainan Province, China, and analyzed using structural equation modeling.ResultsThe results show that perceived susceptibility and perceived severity significantly enhance perceived health benefits, while perceived benefits exert the strongest positive influence and perceived barriers have a significant negative effect. Perceived health benefits and self-efficacy emerge as the primary predictors of visitation intention, with cues to action providing additional activation. The model explains 42.4% of the variance in perceived health benefits and 49.0% of the variance in intention to visit forests.DiscussionBy conceptualizing perceived health benefits as a distinct cognitive mechanism, this study extends the application of HBM to tropical forest contexts characterized by conservation pressures. The findings highlight the importance of integrating health-oriented perceptions into forest management and ecotourism strategies, so that maintaining and promoting health-motivated visitation can indirectly strengthen conservation support while sustaining human well-being in vulnerable tropical forest systems.

Human pain perception is not solely driven by sensory input but is dynamically modulated by what we expect to feel and how confident we are in those expectations. Yet, the temporal mechanisms through which evolving expectations shape pain remain poorly understood. Here, we combined a probabilistic cueing paradigm with computational modeling and EEG to dissociate two core components of expectation: strength (a recency-weighted estimate of predicted pain) and precision (the inverse variability of recent predictions). Trial-wise strength estimates closely tracked subjective expectations and outperformed static cue labels, validating the model’s psychological relevance. Expectation strength and precision exerted dissociable effects on pain processing: strength enhanced, whereas precision suppressed, pain-evoked responses. Critically, anticipatory α-band activity mediated these effects via distinct topographical patterns—expectation strength reduced fronto-central α power (reflecting heightened vigilance), while precision increased contralateral sensorimotor α-synchronization (supporting sensory gating). Source-level mediation analyses identified a right-lateralized dorsolateral prefrontal–sensorimotor cortices (DLPFC-SM1) integrating both components, with strength-specific engagement of the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC). These effects were supported by Bayesian inference and pooled mega-analyses, underscoring their robustness. Together, these findings highlight cortical α-oscillations as dual-control mechanisms for predictive integration, with DLPFC–SM1 as a shared expectation hub and mPFC as a strength-specific node. By moving beyond static cue-based models, this framework captures the adaptive dynamics of expectation and provides a neurocomputational foundation for targeted interventions in chronic pain.

•Drift-Diffusion Modeling revealed persistent pain intensified incongruency effects on slowing drift rate and narrowing decision thresholds.•Persistent pain amplified the incongruency effect on heightening P3 component amplitude (300–600 ms).•Multivariate EEG identified early δ/θ oscillations (1–7 Hz, 116–364 ms) selectively decoding incongruency under persistent pain.•These effects are specific to the word-based task, with no significant findings in the picture-based task.•Persistent pain exacerbated difficulties in disengaging from pain-related verbal information, affecting processes like expectancy violation detection, decision-making, and response inhibition. Pain modulates attentional biases, contributing to chronic pain development and maintenance through enhanced focus on pain-related stimuli. This study employed drift-diffusion modeling (DDM) and multivariate EEG to investigate how sustained pain affects attention allocation. Using a crossover design, 58 healthy volunteers underwent two sessions (capsaicin-induced pain vs. control cream) while performing word- and picture-based dot-probe tasks. Probes appeared in locations either congruent or incongruent with pain-related stimuli, or after neutral stimulus pairs. Behavioral and neural responses to congruency and incongruency effects were compared between pain states. DDM revealed increased incongruency effects during pain, characterized by slower drift rates and narrower decision thresholds, suggesting impaired evidence accumulation. EEG analyses revealed two distinct pain-state modulations: (1) amplified P3 amplitudes (300−600 ms) during incongruent trials, and (2) multivariate decoding of δ/θ oscillations (1−7 Hz, 116−364 ms post-stimulus) that uniquely differentiated incongruent from neutral conditions specifically under pain. These behavioral and neural signatures of attentional disruption manifested selectively during verbal tasks, with no parallel effects observed in pictorial processing. Our findings demonstrate how pain disrupts cognitive control: impaired expectancy processing (early δ/θ oscillations), compromised decision formation (altered DDM parameters), and deficient response inhibition (P3 modulation). These results highlight verbal information processing as a key vulnerability in pain-related attentional bias, suggesting targeted interventions for cognitive control components could mitigate chronic pain consequences.

Previous behavioral studies have shown that sharing painful experiences can strengthen social bonds and promote mutual prosociality, yet the neural mechanisms underlying this phenomenon remain unclear. We hypothesized that sharing a painful experience induces brain-to-brain synchronization and mutual empathy for each other's pain between pain-takers and pain-observers, which then leads to enhanced social bonding. To test this hypothesis, we adopted an electroencephalographic (EEG) hyper-scanning technique to assess neuronal and behavioral activity during a Pain-Sharing task in which high- or low-intensity pain stimulation was randomly delivered to one participant of a dyad on different experimental trials. Single-brain analysis showed that sensorimotor α-oscillation power was suppressed more when expecting high-intensity pain than when expecting low-intensity pain similarly for self-directed or partner-directed pain. Dual-brain analysis revealed that expecting high-intensity pain induced greater brain-to-brain synchronization of sensorimotor α-oscillation phases between pain-takers and pain-observers than did expecting low-intensity pain. Mediation analysis further revealed that brain-to-brain synchronization of sensorimotor α-oscillations mediated the effects of pain-stimulation intensity on mutual affective sharing for partner-directed pain. This mutual affective empathy during the task predicted the social bonding, as indexed by prosocial inclinations measured after the task. These results support the hypothesis that sharing a painful experience triggers emotional resonance between pairs of individuals through brain-to-brain synchronization of neuronal α-oscillations recorded over the sensorimotor cortex, and this emotional resonance further strengthens social bonds and motivates prosocial behavior within pairs of individuals.

Background Lung cancer is among the major diseases threatening human health. Although the immune response plays an important role in tumor development, its exact mechanisms are unclear. Materials and methods Here, we used CIBERSORT and ESTIMATE algorithms to determine the proportion of tumor-infiltrating immune cells (TICs) as well as the number of immune and mesenchymal components from the data of 474 lung cancer patients from the Gene Expression Omnibus database. And we used data from The Cancer Genome Atlas database (TCGA) for validation. Results We observed that immune, stromal, and assessment scores were only somewhat related to survival with no statistically significant differences. Further investigations revealed these scores to be associated with different pathology types. GO and KEGG analyses of differentially expressed genes revealed that they were strongly associated with immunity in lung cancer. In order to determine whether the signaling pathways identified by GO and KEGG signaling pathway enrichment analyses were up- or down-regulated, we performed a gene set enrichment analysis using the entire matrix of differentially expressed genes. We found that signaling pathways involved in hallmark allograft rejection, hallmark apical junction, hallmark interferon gamma response, the hallmark P53 pathway, and the hallmark TNF-α signaling via NF-ĸB were up-regulated in the high-ESTIMATE-score group. CIBERSORT analysis for the proportion of TICs revealed that different immune cells were positively correlated with the ESTIMATE score. Cox regression analysis of the differentially expressed genes revealed that CPA3 , C15orf48 , FCGR1B , and GNG4 were associated with patient prognosis. A prognostic model was constructed wherein patients with high-risk scores had a worse prognosis ( p  < 0.001 using the log-rank test). The Area Under Curve (AUC)value for the risk model in predicting the survival was 0.666. The validation set C index was 0.631 (95% CI: 0.580–0.652). The AUC for the risk formula in the validation set was 0.560 that confirmed predictivity of the signature. Conclusion We found that immune-related gene expression models could predict patient prognosis. Moreover, high- and low-ESTIMATE-score groups had different types of immune cell infiltration.

Abstract Predictability has been suggested to modulate both the anticipation and perception of self-pain. Considering the overlapping neural circuits between self-pain and other-pain perceptions, the present study investigated how the predictability of forthcoming pain modulates the anticipation and perception of self-pain and other-pain. We used a balanced, within-participant experimental design in which a visual cue indicating the recipient, intensity and predictability of an upcoming painful electrical stimulation was presented before its delivery. Subjective ratings and electroencephalography activities to the anticipation and perception of self-pain and other-pain were recorded and compared between certain and uncertain conditions. Results showed that predictability affected the perception of self-pain and other-pain in a similar manner such that the differences in behavioral ratings and event-related potentials to high-intensity and low-intensity pain were significantly reduced when the intensity was uncertain. The strengths of predictability-induced modulation of self-pain and other-pain perceptions were positively correlated with each other. Furthermore, predictability also modulated the anticipation of both self-pain and other-pain such that pre-stimulus high-frequency α-oscillation power at sensorimotor electrodes contralateral to the stimulation side was maximally suppressed when anticipating certain high-intensity pain. These findings demonstrate that predictability-induced modulation on pain anticipation and perception was similarly applied to both self-pain and other-pain.