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Throughout the ages, pain - whether physical or emotional has been an important concept for societies. Hippocrates (460 to 377 B.C) discussed the importance of pain and taught pain relief treatments, and Zeno of Citium (356 to 264 B.C.), the founder of Stoicism, considered pain to be one of nine forms of grief. The feeling of loss that individuals experience in its many forms is often expressed in terms of painful feelings. Science can tell us that there is a physiological correlate for pain but is this also true for emotional pain? Do areas of the brain reflect our subjective experience of loss?
Researchers from UCLA conducted a neuroimaging study recently published in Science that examined the neural correlates of social exclusion and tested the hypothesis that the brain bases of social pain are similar to those of physical pain. Subjects were scanned using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) while playing a game that resulted in their being either socially included or excluded from others playing the game.
Paralleling results from physical pain studies, the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) was more active during exclusion than during inclusion and correlated positively with self-reported distress. Right ventral prefrontal cortex (RVPFC) was also active during exclusion and correlated negatively with self-reported distress. It was interesting that the ACC changes mediated the RVPFC-distress correlation, suggesting that RVPFC regulates the distress of social exclusion by disrupting ACC activity.
The researchers conclude that although we can say that being excluded from a social situation doesn't matter, it certainly appears that rejection of any form registers automatically in the brain, and the mechanism appears to be similar to the experience of physical pain. The investigators suggest that these findings show how our need for social connection is deeply rooted and that this may have evolved because of the importance of social bonds for the survival of most mammals.
A related article on painful affect
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