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A Physiological Basis
For Emotional Pain
Bruised Ego Said To Cause Physical Pain
By Paul Recer
AP Science Writer
10-12-3
- WASHINGTON -- A rejected
lover's broken heart may cause as much distress in a pain center of the
brain as an actual physical injury, according to new research.
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- California researchers have found a physiological
basis for social pain by monitoring the brains of people who thought they
had been maliciously excluded from a computer game by other players.
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- Naomi I. Eisenberger, a scientist at the University of
California, Los Angeles and the first author of the study to be published
Friday in the journal Science, said the study suggests that the need for
social inclusiveness is a deep-seated part of what it means to be human.
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- "These findings show how deeply rooted our need is for
social connection," said Eisenberger. "There's something about exclusion
from others that is perceived as being as harmful to our survival as
something that can physically hurt us, and our body automatically knows
this."
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- Eisenberger and her co-authors created a computer game
in which test subjects were led to believe they were playing ball with two
other players. At some point, the other players seemed to exclude the test
subject from the game - making it appear the test subject had been
suddenly rejected and blocked from playing with the group.
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- The shock and distress of this rejection registered in
the same part of the brain, called the anterior cingulate cortex, that
also responds to physical pain, Eisenberger said.
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- "The ACC is the same part of the brain that has been
found to be associated with the unpleasantness of physical pain, the part
of pain that really bothers us," Eisenberger said.
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- Eisenberger said the study suggests that social
exclusion of any sort -- divorce, not being invited to a party, being
turned down for a date -- would cause distress in the ACC.
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- "You can imagine that this part of the brain is active
any time we are separated from our close companions," she said. "It would
definitely be active when we experience a loss," such as a death or the
end of a love affair.
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- In a commentary in Science, Jaak Panksepp of the
department of psychology at Bowling Green State University in Ohio, said
earlier studies have shown that the anterior cingulate cortex is linked to
physical pain.
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- He said the new study by Eisenberger and her
co-authors demonstrates that the ACC is also activated by the distress of
social exclusion.
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- "Throughout history poets have written about the pain
of a broken heart," Panksepp said in his commentary. "It seems that such
poetic insights into the human condition are now supported by
neurophysiological findings."
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- The tendency to feel rejection as an acute pain may
have developed in humans as a defensive mechanism for the species, said
Eisenberger.
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- "Because we have such a long time as infants and need
to be taken care of, it is really important that we stay close to the
social group. If we don't we're not going to survive," said Eisenberger.
"The hypothesis is that the social attachment system that makes sure we
don't stray too far from the group piggybacked onto the pain system to
help our species survive."
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- This suggests that the need to be accepted as part of
a social group is as important to humans as avoiding other types of pain,
she said.
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- Just as an infant may learn to avoid fire by first
being burned, humans may learn to stick together because rejection causes
distress in the pain center of the brain, said Eisenberger.
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- "If it hurts to be separated from other people, then
it will prevent us from straying too far from the social group," she said.
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- http://www.pe.com/lifestyles/healthandfitness/stories/
PE.HEALTH.2003.1010.ap-bruised-brain.ad59ddf.html
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