scholarly journals Social Pain and the Brain: How Insights from Neuroimaging Advance the Study of Social Rejection

10.5772/58271 ◽  
2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Pond ◽  
Stephanie Richman ◽  
David Chester ◽  
Nathan DeWall
Keyword(s):  
Social Rejection ◽  
Social Pain ◽  
The Brain

Acetaminophen Reduces Social Pain

2010 ◽  
Vol 21 (7) ◽  
pp. 931-937 ◽  
Author(s):  
C. Nathan DeWall ◽  
Geoff MacDonald ◽  
Gregory D. Webster ◽  
Carrie L. Masten ◽  
Roy F. Baumeister ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Brain Activity ◽  
Brain Regions ◽  
Daily Basis ◽  
Social Rejection ◽  
Neural Mechanisms ◽  
Anterior Cingulate ◽  
Neural Responses ◽  
Physical Pain ◽  
Social Pain ◽  
Dorsal Anterior Cingulate Cortex

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.

scholarly journals Narcissists’ social pain seen only in the brain

2014 ◽  
Vol 10 (3) ◽  
pp. 335-341 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher N. Cascio ◽  
Sara H. Konrath ◽  
Emily B. Falk
Keyword(s):  
Social Pain ◽  
The Brain

scholarly journals The heart-break of social rejection versus the brain wave of social acceptance

2013 ◽  
Vol 9 (9) ◽  
pp. 1346-1351 ◽  
Author(s):  
Frederik M. van der Veen ◽  
Maurits W. van der Molen ◽  
Priya P. Sahibdin ◽  
Ingmar H. A. Franken
Keyword(s):  
Social Acceptance ◽  
Social Rejection ◽  
Brain Wave ◽  
The Brain

scholarly journals Neural Mechanisms of the Rejection-Aggression Link

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Skylan Chester ◽  
Donald Lynam ◽  
Richard Milich ◽  
C. Nathan DeWall
Keyword(s):  
Functional Connectivity ◽  
Functional Mri ◽  
Ventral Striatum ◽  
Social Rejection ◽  
Neural Mechanisms ◽  
Social Pain ◽  
Regulatory Processes ◽  
The Right ◽  
Reward Network

Social rejection is a painful event that often increases aggression. However, the neural mechanisms of this rejection-aggression link remain unclear. A potential clue may be that rejected people often recruit the ventrolateral prefrontal cortex’s (VLPFC) self-regulatory processes to manage the pain of rejection. Using functional MRI, we replicated previous links between rejection and activity in the brain’s mentalizing network, social pain network, and VLPFC. VLPFC recruitment during rejection was associated with greater activity in the brain’s reward network (i.e., the ventral striatum) when individuals were given an opportunity to retaliate. This retaliation-related striatal response was associated with greater levels of retaliatory aggression. Dispositionally aggressive individuals exhibited less functional connectivity between the ventral striatum and the right VLPFC during aggression. This connectivity exerted a suppressing effect on dispositionally aggressive individuals’ greater aggressive responses to rejection. These results help explain how the pain of rejection and reward of revenge motivate rejected people to behave aggressively.

Social rejection may be pain to the brain

2003 ◽  
Vol 2 (12) ◽  
pp. 717
Author(s):  
Adrian Burton
Keyword(s):  
Social Rejection ◽  
The Brain
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