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Everybody knows that breaking up is hard to do. Scientists at the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) can now give us a physical explanation as to why.
After several studies showed that romantic love had a beneficial effect on pain perception in the brain, scientists started looking for proof that romantic breakups had a detrimental effect on
pain perception
in the brain. Researchers at Columbia University in New York City decided to study pain after rejection in a big way.
The researchers explained their idea in terms of relative pain. Which is worse, the scientists asked, spilling hot coffee on your arm or having to remember romantic rejection? The Columbia University researchers devised an experiment to find an answer to this question in a very literal way.
The researchers put ads on Craiglist and Facebook and distributed fliers in Manhattan soliciting study participants who had experienced an unwanted romantic breakup in the last six months. The 40 female volunteers were shown photos of their ex or of a friend while receiving MRI scans. They were asked to recall the moment of rejection with their ex, or their happiest recent interaction with their friend. They were also given psychological tests to measure
Some of the findings of the study in Manhattan were not exactly earth shattering. Pain perception was greater from hot probes than from warm probes. Pain perception was greater when volunteers work thinking about their breakups than when they were thinking about happy interactions with friends .
However, the MRI scans revealed an important new understanding about the pain of romantic breakups. Both the hot probe and thinking about an ex activated the same four areas of the brain that are involved in pain perception, the thalamus, the operculo-insular region, the dorsal anterior cingulate region, and the anterior insula.
That's not a profound insight, either. But what the research does tell us is that the pain of romantic breakup is real, and just as worthy of care and concern as physical injury. It is important to avoid even mildly negative social encounters after a big breakup because they increase sensitivity to both physical and emotional pain.
The researchers put ads on Craiglist and Facebook and distributed fliers in Manhattan soliciting study participants who had experienced an unwanted romantic breakup in the last six months. The 40 female volunteers were shown photos of their ex or of a friend while receiving MRI scans. They were asked to recall the moment of rejection with their ex, or their happiest recent interaction with their friend. They were also given psychological tests to measure
Some of the findings of the study in Manhattan were not exactly earth shattering. Pain perception was greater from hot probes than from warm probes. Pain perception was greater when volunteers work thinking about their breakups than when they were thinking about happy interactions with friends .
However, the MRI scans revealed an important new understanding about the pain of romantic breakups. Both the hot probe and thinking about an ex activated the same four areas of the brain that are involved in pain perception, the thalamus, the operculo-insular region, the dorsal anterior cingulate region, and the anterior insula.
What do these findings mean? In practical terms, the neuroscientists have shown in objective terms that:
- Romantic breakups are experienced as physical pain.
- Romantic breakups also increase sensitivity to actual physical pain. It takes less of a physical injury to experience pain.
- Women of all cultural backgrounds experience pain after romantic breakups.
- Some women have brain chemistry or biology that makes them especially sensitive to the pain of romantic breakups.
- Women can experience heightened brain activity related to pain when they observe pain in others or they hear about romantic breakups in other women.
- Negative social encounters of all kinds lower the threshold for both physical and emotional pain.
READ Resolving Relationship Conflict
So, what can scientists tell us about how women can avoid emotional pain after a romantic breakup? The best advice they have for women right now is that it probably helps, in terms of how the brain works, to learn to see the ex as "in the distance." The more women put their relationships behind them, the less they hurt .That's not a profound insight, either. But what the research does tell us is that the pain of romantic breakup is real, and just as worthy of care and concern as physical injury. It is important to avoid even mildly negative social encounters after a big breakup because they increase sensitivity to both physical and emotional pain.
- Eisenberger NI, Master SL, Inagaki TK, Taylor SE, Shirinyan D, Lieberman MD, Naliboff BD. Attachment figures activate a safety signal-related neural region and reduce pain experience.
- Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2011 Jul 12
- 108(28):11721-6. Epub 2011 Jun 27.
- Photo courtesy of petermackie on Flickr: www.flickr.com/photos/petermackie/6268429322
- Photo courtesy of ocs_camp on Flickr: www.flickr.com/photos/ocs_camp/2221415063/