PSYC 112 - Social Pleasures and Pains (Exam 4)

Empathy

"Feeling with" someone

can lead to personal distress, burnout, or clash with fairness

Compassion

"Feeling for" someone

an emotional-motivational state characterized by warmth, concern, and the desire to promote welfare

Compassion Neural Network

Ventral Striatum (VS)

Medial Orbitofrontal Cortex (mOFC)

Subgenual ACC (sgACC) / Pregenual Anterior Cingulate Cortex (pACC)

• induces change in regions associated with reward, love, and affiliation (mOFC, VS)

Empathy via Pain network

Anterior Insula (AI)

Anterior Cingulate Cortex (aMCC)

• overlap with neural bases of empathy for pain

  • AI, ACC / aMCC

Compassion Training

increases positive affect and reward network activation

Empathy Training

increases negative affect/pain network activation

Neural Bases of Physical Pain (Pain Network) — Cheat Sheet

SSC: somatosensory cortex

• subjective distressing aspects of pain

dACC: dorsal anterior cingulate cortex

Ins: insula

• dACC + Ins —> sensory aspects of pain

Thal: thalamus

PAG: periaqueductal gray

Pleasure Network —> Cheat Sheet

VTA: Ventral Tegmental Area

VS: Ventral Striatum

Amyg: Amygdala

VMPFC: Ventral Medial Prefrontal Cortex

Social Reward Task

Recruits the striatum —> pleasure network, (also with monetary reward)

uniquely recruits the MPFC (which is not activated by monetary reward)

• social approval acts as a core hedonic reward

Ultimatum Game

Being treated fairly:

• activates Ventral Striatum and VMPFC (reward network)

• suppresses amygdala

fairness is hedonically valued (makes people happy)

Being treated unfairly:

• activates Anterior Insula (pain network) and VLPFC (emotion regulation)

Self-Disclosure

Participants make judgments about themselves vs. others

Making self-disclosing judgments:

• activates Ventral Striatum

sharing personal information about the self is intrinsically rewarding

Prisoner’s Dilemma — Cooperation

Cooperation recruits reward-processing regions

1. MPFC — Cooperations involves mental state attribution

2. OFC

3. Ventral Striatum (VS) — Cooperating is rewarding and sustains cooperation

Greater activation in the VS = higher likelihood of future cooperation

Altruism + Donation Tasks

Pure monetary rewards + pure donations:

• VTA and Striatum

• VS more active

  • when making donations instead of receiving money

Altruistic donations

• UNIQUELY recruits Subgenual Area (SG)

  • adjacent to VMPFC, linked to attachment and social affiliation)

Support - Giving Task

Providing support activates

• Ventral Striatum

more than receiving support or physical contact

supporting others is neurobiologically rewarding and fosters social connection

Cyberball Task — Social Exclusion

Social exclusion activates —>

• Anterior Cingulate Cortex (ACC)

  • activity correlates with reported distress

• Ventral Prefrontal Cortex

  • for emotion regulation to minimize that pain

Social Rejection + Physical Pain

Thinking about social rejection —>

• recruits the exact same physical pain hardware as actual thermal pain

  • Insula

  • dACC

  • Thalamus

  • Secondary Somatosensory Cortex (S2)

Acetaminophen + Social Pain

pain relievers reduce daily reports of hurt feelings and suppress neural activation

• dACC

• Anterior Insula (AI)

social and physical pain share identical neural substrates