scholarly journals The Push of Social Pain: Does Rejection’s Sting Motivate Subsequent Social Reconnection?

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Chester ◽  
C. Nathan DeWall ◽  
Richard S. Pond
Keyword(s):  
Anterior Insula ◽  
Anterior Cingulate ◽  
Need To Belong ◽  
Affiliative Behavior ◽  
Physical Pain ◽  
Social Pain ◽  
Dorsal Anterior Cingulate Cortex ◽  
Left And Right ◽  
Social Reconnection ◽  
Insight Into

Physical pain motivates the healing of somatic injuries. Yet it remains unknown whether social pain serves a similarly reparative function towards social injuries. Given the substantial overlap between physical and social pain, we predicted that social pain would mediate the effect of rejection on greater motivation for social reconnection and affiliative behavior towards rejecters. In Study 1, the effect of rejection on an increased need to belong was mediated by reports of more intense social pain. In Study 2, three neural signatures of social pain (i.e., activity in the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex, left and right anterior insula during social rejection), each predicted greater behavioral proximity to rejecters. Our findings reify the overlap between social and physical pain. Further, these results are some of the first to demonstrate the reparative nature of social pain and lend insight into how this process may be harnessed to promote post-rejection reconnection.

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 Altruistic behaviors relieve physical pain

2019 ◽  
Vol 117 (2) ◽  
pp. 950-958 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yilu Wang ◽  
Jianqiao Ge ◽  
Hanqi Zhang ◽  
Haixia Wang ◽  
Xiaofei Xie
Keyword(s):  
Brain Activity ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Anterior Cingulate ◽  
Altruistic Behavior ◽  
Physical Pain ◽  
Dorsal Anterior Cingulate Cortex ◽  
Pilot Studies ◽  
Ventral Medial Prefrontal Cortex ◽  
Painful Shock ◽  
The Right

Engaging in altruistic behaviors is costly, but it contributes to the health and well-being of the performer of such behaviors. The present research offers a take on how this paradox can be understood. Across 2 pilot studies and 3 experiments, we showed a pain-relieving effect of performing altruistic behaviors. Acting altruistically relieved not only acutely induced physical pain among healthy adults but also chronic pain among cancer patients. Using functional MRI, we found that after individuals performed altruistic actions brain activity in the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex and bilateral insula in response to a painful shock was significantly reduced. This reduced pain-induced activation in the right insula was mediated by the neural activity in the ventral medial prefrontal cortex (VMPFC), while the activation of the VMPFC was positively correlated with the performer’s experienced meaningfulness from his or her altruistic behavior. Our findings suggest that incurring personal costs to help others may buffer the performers from unpleasant conditions.

scholarly journals Effective Connectivity of the Hippocampus Can Differentiate Patients with Schizophrenia from Healthy Controls: A Spectral DCM Approach

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lavinia Carmen Uscătescu ◽  
Lisa Kronbichler ◽  
Renate Stelzig-Schöler ◽  
Brandy-Gale Pearce ◽  
Sarah Said-Yürekli ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Negative Symptoms ◽  
Effective Connectivity ◽  
Anterior Insula ◽  
Anterior Cingulate ◽  
Frontal Eye Fields ◽  
Healthy Controls ◽  
Dorsal Anterior Cingulate Cortex ◽  
Left Hippocampus ◽  
Male Patients ◽  
The Right

AbstractWe applied spectral dynamic causal modelling (Friston et al. in Neuroimage 94:396–407. 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2013.12.009, 2014) to analyze the effective connectivity differences between the nodes of three resting state networks (i.e. default mode network, salience network and dorsal attention network) in a dataset of 31 male healthy controls (HC) and 25 male patients with a diagnosis of schizophrenia (SZ). Patients showed increased directed connectivity from the left hippocampus (LHC) to the: dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (DACC), right anterior insula (RAI), left frontal eye fields and the bilateral inferior parietal sulcus (LIPS & RIPS), as well as increased connectivity from the right hippocampus (RHC) to the: bilateral anterior insula (LAI & RAI), right frontal eye fields and RIPS. In SZ, negative symptoms predicted the connectivity strengths from the LHC to: the DACC, the left inferior parietal sulcus (LIPAR) and the RHC, while positive symptoms predicted the connectivity strengths from the LHC to the LIPAR and from the RHC to the LHC. These results reinforce the crucial role of hippocampus dysconnectivity in SZ pathology and its potential as a biomarker of disease severity.

scholarly journals The impacts of actual and perceived nicotine administration on insula functional connectivity with the anterior cingulate cortex and nucleus accumbens

2019 ◽  
Vol 33 (12) ◽  
pp. 1600-1609 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robin N Perry ◽  
Hera E Schlagintweit ◽  
Christine Darredeau ◽  
Carl Helmick ◽  
Aaron J Newman ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Nucleus Accumbens ◽  
Functional Connectivity ◽  
Anterior Cingulate Cortex ◽  
Resting State ◽  
Cingulate Cortex ◽  
Anterior Insula ◽  
Anterior Cingulate ◽  
Resting State Functional Connectivity ◽  
Dorsal Anterior Cingulate Cortex ◽  
Nicotine Administration

Background: Changes in resting state functional connectivity between the insula and dorsal anterior cingulate cortex as well as between the insula and nucleus accumbens have been linked to nicotine withdrawal and/or administration. However, because many of nicotine’s effects in humans appear to depend, at least in part, on the belief that nicotine has been administered, the relative contribution of nicotine’s pharmacological actions to such effects requires clarification. Aims: The purpose of this study was to examine the impacts of perceived and actual nicotine administration on neural responses. Methods: Twenty-six smokers were randomly assigned to receive either a nicotine inhaler (4 mg deliverable) or a nicotine-free inhaler across two sessions. Inhaler content instructions (told nicotine vs told nicotine-free) differed across sessions. Resting state functional connectivity between sub-regions of the insula and the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex and nucleus accumbens was measured using magnetic resonance imaging before and after inhaler administration. Results: Both actual and perceived nicotine administration independently altered resting state functional connectivity between the anterior insula and the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex, with actual administration being associated with decreased resting state functional connectivity, and perceived administration with increased resting state functional connectivity. Actual nicotine administration also contralaterally reduced resting state functional connectivity between the anterior insula and nucleus accumbens, while reductions in resting state functional connectivity between the mid-insula and right nucleus accumbens were observed when nicotine was administered unexpectedly. Changes in resting state functional connectivity associated with actual or perceived nicotine administration were unrelated to changes in subjective withdrawal and craving. Changes in withdrawal and craving were however independently associated with resting state functional connectivity between the nucleus accumbens and insula. Conclusions: Our findings highlight the importance of considering non-pharmacological factors when examining drug mechanisms of action.

scholarly journals Effective connectivity of the hippocampus can differentiate patients with schizophrenia from healthy controls: a spectral DCM approach

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lavinia Carmen Uscătescu ◽  
Lisa Kronbichler ◽  
Renate Stelzig-Schöler ◽  
Brandy-Gale Pearce ◽  
Sarah Said-Yürekli ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Negative Symptoms ◽  
Effective Connectivity ◽  
Anterior Insula ◽  
Anterior Cingulate ◽  
Frontal Eye Fields ◽  
Healthy Controls ◽  
Dorsal Anterior Cingulate Cortex ◽  
Left Hippocampus ◽  
Male Patients ◽  
The Right

AbstractWe applied spectral dynamic causal modelling (spDCM; Friston et al., 2014) to analyze the effective connectivity differences between the nodes of three resting state networks (i.e. Default mode network/DMN, Salience network/SAN and Dorsal attention network/DAN) in a dataset of 31 healthy controls (HC) and 25 patients with schizophrenia (SZ), all male. Patients showed increased connectivity from the left hippocampus (LHC) to the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (DACC), right anterior insula (RAI), left frontal eye fields (LFEF) and the bilateral inferior parietal sulcus (LIPS & RIPS), as well as increased connectivity from the right hippocampus (RHC) to the bilateral anterior insula (LAI & RAI), right frontal eye fields (RFEF) and RIPS. Moreover, negative symptoms predicted the connectivity strengths from the LHC to the DACC, the left inferior parietal sulcus (LIPAR) and the RHC, while positive symptoms predicted the connectivity strengths from the LHC to the LIPAR and from the RHC to the LHC. These results reinforce the crucial role of hippocampus dysconnectivity in SZ pathology and its potential as a biomarker of disease severity.

scholarly journals The dorsal anterior cingulate cortex is selective for pain: Results from large-scale reverse inference

2015 ◽  
Vol 112 (49) ◽  
pp. 15250-15255 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthew D. Lieberman ◽  
Naomi I. Eisenberger
Keyword(s):  
Anterior Cingulate Cortex ◽  
Executive Control ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Supplementary Motor Area ◽  
Cingulate Cortex ◽  
Anterior Cingulate ◽  
Physical Pain ◽  
Conflict Monitoring ◽  
Dorsal Anterior Cingulate Cortex ◽  
Reverse Inference

Dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (dACC) activation is commonly observed in studies of pain, executive control, conflict monitoring, and salience processing, making it difficult to interpret the dACC’s specific psychological function. Using Neurosynth, an automated brainmapping database [of over 10,000 functional MRI (fMRI) studies], we performed quantitative reverse inference analyses to explore the best general psychological account of the dACC function P(Ψ process|dACC activity). Results clearly indicated that the best psychological description of dACC function was related to pain processing—not executive, conflict, or salience processing. We conclude by considering that physical pain may be an instance of a broader class of survival-relevant goals monitored by the dACC, in contrast to more arbitrary temporary goals, which may be monitored by the supplementary motor area.

scholarly journals Functional Fractionation of the Cingulo-opercular Network: Alerting Insula and Updating Cingulate

2018 ◽  
Vol 29 (6) ◽  
pp. 2624-2638 ◽  
Author(s):  
Suk Won Han ◽  
Hana P Eaton ◽  
René Marois
Keyword(s):  
Anterior Cingulate Cortex ◽  
Brain Regions ◽  
Anterior Insula ◽  
Attention Capture ◽  
Anterior Cingulate ◽  
Event Type ◽  
Dorsal Anterior Cingulate Cortex ◽  
Significant Events ◽  
Affective Processes ◽  
Current Task

Abstract The anterior insula (AI) and dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (dACC) are engaged in various cognitive and affective processes. An influential account posits that the AI and dACC’s ubiquitous engagements reflect their role in the transient capture of attention by salient stimuli. Using fMRI here we tested this claim and functionally dissociated these regions. In the first experiment, we compared these regions’ responses to emotion-laden and emotion-neutral salient “oddball” movie events. We found that while the AI only responded transiently to the onset and offset of neutral events, its response to affective events was sustained, challenging the transient attention capture account. By contrast, dACC remained transient regardless of event type. A second experiment distinguished the information encoded by these brain regions with the presentation of behaviorally salient events that require either maintaining the current task set or updating to a different one; the AI was found to signal the presence of the behaviorally relevant events, while the dACC was associated with switching of attention settings in response to the events. We conclude that AI and dACC are involved in signaling the presence of potentially or de facto behaviorally significant events and updating internal attention settings in response to these events, respectively.

Heightened neural sensitivity to social pain and social gain in major depressive disorder.

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Julia Gillard ◽  
Aliza Werner-Seidler ◽  
Jason Stretton ◽  
Tim Dalgleish
Keyword(s):  
Major Depressive Disorder ◽  
Depressive Disorder ◽  
Social Inclusion ◽  
Social Experiences ◽  
Anterior Cingulate ◽  
Social Pain ◽  
Dorsal Anterior Cingulate Cortex ◽  
Major Depressive ◽  
Neural Substrate ◽  
Social Gain

Social rejection represents a proximal risk factor for depression onset that is thought to activate a neuro-cognitive alarm system for social and physical pain. However, emerging evidence suggests that both social pain and social gain share an overlapping neural substrate. This remains unexplored in the context of depression. Eighteen participants with Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) and 21 controls listened to and vividly revisited autobiographical social experiences in an ecologically valid script-driven imagery paradigm using naturalistic memory narratives. An overlapping neural substrate in the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex and anterior insula was activated while revisiting both social-inclusion and -rejection experiences relative to neutral ones. These same regions were more active in MDD compared to controls for both rejection and inclusion narratives. Our findings add to the evidence for an overlapping neural substrate of complex representations for both positive and negative social signals and suggest a heightened neural sensitivity in MDD towards any socially salient information as opposed to selective sensitivity towards negative social experiences.

The Physiology of Social Pain

2020 ◽  
pp. 47-68
Author(s):  
Anita L. Vangelisti ◽  
Nicholas Brody
Keyword(s):  
Physiological Responses ◽  
Cognitive Behavioral ◽  
Neural Processing ◽  
Physical Pain ◽  
Social Pain ◽  
Physiological Basis ◽  
Future Directions ◽  
Social Basis ◽  
The Social

Social pain and physical pain have historically been conceptualized as distinct phenomena. Recent research, however, has noted several similarities between the two. The present chapter establishes the physiological basis of social pain. Further, the chapter explores the relational precedents and correlates of social pain. By synthesizing research that explores definitional elements of social pain, the reviewed literature explores the social basis of hurt. The chapter also reviews the extant research that posits similarities in the neural processing of social and physical pain. These similarities are further explained by examining findings that have emphasized parallels between cognitive, behavioral, and physiological responses to both social and physical pain. Shortcomings in the current research are reviewed, and several future directions are offered for researchers interested in the physiology of social pain.

scholarly journals Ketogenic diet reduces alcohol withdrawal symptoms in humans and alcohol intake in rodents

2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (15) ◽  
pp. eabf6780
Author(s):  
Corinde E. Wiers ◽  
Leandro F. Vendruscolo ◽  
Jan-Willem van der Veen ◽  
Peter Manza ◽  
Ehsan Shokri-Kojori ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Ketogenic Diet ◽  
Alcohol Withdrawal ◽  
Alcohol Use Disorder ◽  
Alcohol Intake ◽  
Anterior Cingulate ◽  
Dorsal Anterior Cingulate Cortex ◽  
Beneficial Effects ◽  
Alcohol Cues ◽  
History Of ◽  
To Receive

Individuals with alcohol use disorder (AUD) show elevated brain metabolism of acetate at the expense of glucose. We hypothesized that a shift in energy substrates during withdrawal may contribute to withdrawal severity and neurotoxicity in AUD and that a ketogenic diet (KD) may mitigate these effects. We found that inpatients with AUD randomized to receive KD (n = 19) required fewer benzodiazepines during the first week of detoxification, in comparison to those receiving a standard American (SA) diet (n = 14). Over a 3-week treatment, KD compared to SA showed lower “wanting” and increased dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (dACC) reactivity to alcohol cues and altered dACC bioenergetics (i.e., elevated ketones and glutamate and lower neuroinflammatory markers). In a rat model of alcohol dependence, a history of KD reduced alcohol consumption. We provide clinical and preclinical evidence for beneficial effects of KD on managing alcohol withdrawal and on reducing alcohol drinking.

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