Naomi Eisenberger: UCLA Department of Psychology

Numerous languages characterize ‘social pain,’ the feelings resulting from social rejection or loss, with words typically reserved for describing physical pain (“broken hearts,” “hurt feelings”) and perhaps for good reason. It has been suggested that, in mammalian species, the social attachment system borrowed the computations of the physical pain system in order to prevent the potentially harmful consequences of social separation. In this talk, I will use a combination of behavioral and neuroimaging methodologies to explore the notion that physical and social pain rely on overlapping neural and experiential processes. Specifically, I will examine: 1) whether social pain activates pain-related neural circuitry, 2) whether individual differences in sensitivity to one kind of pain relate to individual differences in sensitivity to the other (e.g. Are individuals who are more sensitive to physical pain also more sensitive to social pain?), and 3) whether factors that up- or down-regulate one type of pain affect the other in a similar manner (e.g., Can physical painkillers reduce social pain?).