Acetaminophen Reduces Social Pain (original) (raw)
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Acetaminophen Reduces Social Pain Behavioral and Neural Evidence
2010
Pain, whether caused by physical injury or social rejection, is an inevitable part of life. These two types of pain-physical and social-may rely on some of the same behavioral and neural mechanisms that register pain-related affect. To the extent that these pain processes overlap, acetaminophen, a physical pain suppressant that acts through central (rather than peripheral) neural mechanisms, may also reduce behavioral and neural responses to social rejection. In two experiments, participants took acetaminophen or placebo daily for 3 weeks. Doses of acetaminophen reduced reports of social pain on a daily basis (Experiment 1). We used functional magnetic resonance imaging to measure participants' brain activity (Experiment 2), and found that acetaminophen reduced neural responses to social rejection in brain regions previously associated with distress caused by social pain and the affective component of physical pain (dorsal anterior cingulate cortex, anterior insula). Thus, acetaminophen reduces behavioral and neural responses associated with the pain of social rejection, demonstrating substantial overlap between social and physical pain.
Social Pain and the Brain: Controversies, Questions, and Where to Go from Here
Annual Review of Psychology, 2015
Emerging evidence has shown that social pain—the painful feelings that follow from social rejection, exclusion, or loss—relies on some of the same neural regions that process physical pain, highlighting a possible physical-social pain overlap. However, the hypothesis that physical pain and social pain rely on shared neural systems has been contested. This review begins by summarizing research supporting the physical-social pain overlap. Next, three criticisms of this overlap model are presented and addressed by synthesizing available research. These criticisms include the suggestions that (a) neural responses to social pain are indicative of conflict detection processes, rather than distress; (b) all negative affective processes, rather than social pain specifically, activate these pain-related neural regions; and (c) neural responses to social (and physical) pain reflect the processing of salience, rather than hurt. Implications of these findings for understanding social and physic...
Neural Correlates of Social Pain
2016
In elementary school, many schoolchildren are introduced to the idiom, "Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me." This phrase implies not only that physical pain is entirely distinct from the negative feelings associated with a social blow, but that physical pain is far more crushing than anything inflicted by social experience, whether it be unintentionally insulting words or explicit social exclusion. However, as decades of psychological research have shown, this common schoolyard phrase does not hold true. Words and actions intended to cause psychological harm, including social exclusion, can hurt very much. In fact, research from the field of social neuroscience has helped us to understand that social pain-the painful feelings accompanying social rejection, exclusion, or loss-and physical pain are not such distinct entities. In fact, findings from social neuroscience have shown that social and physical pain are processed by overlapping neural regions, providing a solid foundation for understanding why social exclusion "hurts." As we will outline in this chapter, social and physical pain appear to share underlying neurobiological mechanisms. We will begin by discussing potential reasons for why social and physical pain evolved to share overlapping neural substrates, followed by neuroscience findings that support the social-physical pain overlap. Finally, we will conclude by discussing potential consequences of the shared neural circuitry. Why Would Social and Physical Pain Share Neural Substrates? When thinking of a list of basic human needs, vital items such as water, food, and shelter probably come to mind. Social psychologists have suggested that in addition to these basic needs, humans have a fundamental need to seek and
The Neural Bases of Social Pain
Psychosomatic Medicine, 2012
Experiences of social rejection or loss have been described as some of the most 'painful' experiences that we, as humans, face and perhaps for good reason. Because of our prolonged period of immaturity, the social attachment system may have co-opted the pain system, borrowing the pain signal to prevent the detrimental consequences of social separation. This review summarizes a program of research that has explored the idea that experiences of physical and social pain rely on shared neural substrates. First, evidence showing that social pain activates painrelated neural regions is reviewed. Then, studies exploring some of the expected consequences of such a physical-social pain overlap are summarized. These studies demonstrate: 1) that individuals who are more sensitive to one kind of pain are also more sensitive to the other and 2) that factors that increase or decrease one kind of pain alter the other in a similar manner. Finally, what these shared neural substrates mean for our understanding of socially painful experience is discussed. Keywords social pain; physical pain; dorsal anterior cingulate cortex; anterior insula; brain; fMRI Psychologists have long noted the importance of social connection for human survival and have suggested that humans have a fundamental "need to belong" or to be socially connected to others [1-3]. Recent models have attempted to advance this idea further by proposing that, like other basic needs, a lack of social connection may feel "painful." Specifically, we and others have argued that there may be an overlap in the neural circuitry underlying experiences of physical pain and "social pain"-the painful feelings following social rejection or social loss [4-8]. From an evolutionary perspective, the idea that a lack of social connection feels "painful" makes good sense. As a mammalian species, humans are born relatively immature, without the capacity to feed or fend for themselves and instead rely almost completely on a caregiver to provide care and nourishment. Because of this prolonged period of mammalian immaturity, the social attachment system-which promotes social bonding-may have piggybacked onto the physical pain system, borrowing the pain signal itself to indicate when social relationships are threatened, thus promoting survival [8]. In other words, to the extent that being separated from a caregiver is such a severe threat to survival, being "hurt" by experiences of social separation may be an adaptive way to prevent them. Indeed, our language provides nice anecdotal evidence for the hypothesis that social and physical pain rely on shared neural circuitry. Specifically, when we describe experiences of social pain-social rejection or social loss-we often do so with physical pain words, complaining of "hurt feelings" or "broken hearts." In fact, this pattern has been shown to exist across many different languages and is not unique to the English language [8]. Moreover, at least in the English language, we have no other means of expressing these "hurt feelings" other than through the use of physical pain words. Still, linguistic evidence
Separate neural representations for physical pain and social rejection
Nature Communications, 2014
Current theories suggest that physical pain and social rejection share common neural mechanisms, largely by virtue of overlapping functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) activity. Here we challenge this notion by identifying distinct multivariate fMRI patterns unique to pain and rejection. Sixty participants experience painful heat and warmth and view photos of ex-partners and friends on separate trials. FMRI pattern classifiers discriminate pain and rejection from their respective control conditions in out-of-sample individuals with 92% and 80% accuracy. The rejection classifier performs at chance on pain, and vice versa. Painand rejection-related representations are uncorrelated within regions thought to encode pain affect (for example, dorsal anterior cingulate) and show distinct functional connectivity with other regions in a separate resting-state data set (N ¼ 91). These findings demonstrate that separate representations underlie pain and rejection despite common fMRI activity at the gross anatomical level. Rather than co-opting pain circuitry, rejection involves distinct affective representations in humans.
Although social and physical pain recruit overlapping neural activity in regions associated with the affective component of pain, the two pains can diverge in their phenomenology. Most notably, feelings of social pain can be re-experienced or "relived," even when the painful episode has long passed, whereas feelings of physical pain cannot be easily relived once the painful episode subsides. Here, we observed that reliving social (vs. physical) pain led to greater self-reported re-experienced pain and greater activity in affective pain regions (dorsal anterior cingulate cortex and anterior insula). Moreover, the degree of relived pain correlated positively with affective pain system activity. In contrast, reliving physical (vs. social) pain led to greater activity in the sensory-discriminative pain system (primary and secondary somatosensory cortex and posterior insula), which did not correlate with relived pain. Preferential engagement of these different pain mechanisms may reflect the use of different top-down neurocognitive pathways to elicit the pain. Social pain reliving recruited dorsomedial prefrontal cortex, often associated with mental state processing, which functionally correlated with affective pain system responses. In contrast, physical pain reliving recruited inferior frontal gyrus, known to be involved in body state processing, which functionally correlated with activation in the sensory pain system. These results update the physical-social pain overlap hypothesis: while overlapping mechanisms support live social and physical pain, distinct mechanisms guide internally-generated pain.
A meta-analysis of the anterior cingulate contribution to social pain
Many functional magnetic resonance imaging studies have explored the neural correlates of social pain that results from social threat, exclusion, rejection, loss or negative evaluation. Although activations have consistently been reported within the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), it remains unclear which ACC subdivision is particularly involved. To provide a quantitative estimation of the specific involvement of ACC subdivisions in social pain, we conducted a voxel-based meta-analysis. The literature search identified 46 articles that included 940 subjects, the majority of which used the cyberball task. Significant likelihoods of activation were found in both the ventral and dorsal ACC for both social pain elicitation and self-reported distress during social pain. Self-reported distress involved more specifically the subgenual and pregenual ACC than social pain-related contrasts. The cyberball task involved the anterior midcingulate cortex to a lesser extent than other experimental tasks. During social pain, children exhibited subgenual activations to a greater extent than adults. Finally, the ventro-dorsal gradient of ACC activations in cyberball studies was related to the length of exclusion phases. The present meta-analysis contributes to a better understanding of the role of ACC subdivisions in social pain, and it could be of particular importance for guiding future studies of social pain and its neural underpinnings.
The salience of self, not social pain, is encoded by dorsal anterior cingulate and insula
Scientific reports, 2018
The human neural correlates of social rejection have attracted significant research interest, but remain subject to vigorous debate. Specifically, it has been proposed that a matrix of brain regions overlapping with the classical pain matrix, and including the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (dACC) and the anterior insular cortex (AI) is critical for processing of social rejection. The present study expands on this conceptualization, by showing that these areas are involved in processing of self-relevant social evaluation, irrespective of valence. Forty healthy adolescents (N = 20 females) were tested in a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scanner. We used a novel paradigm that balanced participants' experience of rejection and acceptance. In addition, the paradigm also controlled for whether the social judgment was towards the participants or towards other fictitious players. By creating a "self" and "other" distinction, we show that right AI and dACC are in...