Papers by Naomi Eisenberger
PLOS ONE, 2021
Consoling touch is a powerful form of social support that has been repeatedly demonstrated to red... more Consoling touch is a powerful form of social support that has been repeatedly demonstrated to reduce the experience of physical pain. However, it remains unknown whether touch reduces emotional pain in the same way that it reduces physical pain. The present research sought to understand how handholding with a romantic partner shapes experiences of emotional pain and comfort during emotional recollection, as well as how it shapes lasting emotional pain associated with emotional experiences. Participants recalled emotionally painful memories or neutral memories with their partners, while holding their partner’s hand or holding a squeeze-ball. They additionally completed a follow-up survey to report how much emotional pain they associated with the emotional experiences after recalling them in the lab with their partners. Although consoling touch did not reduce emotional pain during the task, consoling touch increased feelings of comfort. Moreover, participants later recalled emotional ...
Cortex, 2020
Across different cultures, social touch is used to alleviate distress. Here we adopt a dualbrain ... more Across different cultures, social touch is used to alleviate distress. Here we adopt a dualbrain approach with fMRI to examine whether social touch involves similar activations between the suffering 'target' and the empathizer in brain regions related to emotional sharing such as the observation-execution (mirror) network. To inspect the neural underpinnings of the effects of social touch on pain, we scanned romantic couples during a task that required one partner (the empathizer) to hold the target's hand as the latter experienced painful thermal stimulation. Empathizers and target participants were scanned sequentially, in two counterbalanced phases. Results revealed that hand-holding reduced the pain of the target participant, compared to the severity of pain in a control condition (holding a rubber ball). Importantly, during social touch we found striking shared activations between the target and empathizer in the inferior parietal lobule (IPL), a region related to the observation-execution network. The brain-to-brain analysis further revealed a positive correlation of IPL activation levels between the target and the empathizer. Finally, psychophysiological interaction (PPI) analysis in the target showed that the IPL activity during social touch was positively coupled with activity in the dorsomedial prefrontal cortex, a region that has been implicated in emotion regulation, suggesting that the interaction between the observation-execution network and emotion regulation network may contribute to pain reduction during social touch.
Psychoneuroendocrinology, 2019
Research examining oxytocin and vasopressin in humans has the potential to elucidate neurobiologi... more Research examining oxytocin and vasopressin in humans has the potential to elucidate neurobiological mechanisms underlying human sociality that have been previously unknown or not well characterized. A primary goal of this work is to increase our knowledge about neurodevelopmental and psychiatric disorders characterized by impairments in social cognition. However, years of research highlighting wide-ranging effects of, in particular, intranasal oxytocin administration have been tempered as the fields of psychology, neuroscience, and other disciplines have been addressing concerns over the reproducibility and validity of research findings. We present a series of behavioral tasks that were conducted using a randomized, double-blind, placebo controlled, between-subjects design, in which our research group found no main effects of oxytocin and vasopressin on a host of social outcomes. In addition to null hypothesis significance testing, we implemented equivalence testing and Bayesian hypothesis testing to examine the sensitivity of our findings. These analyses indicated that 47-83% of our results (depending on the method of post-hoc analysis) had enough sensitivity to detect the absence of a main effect. Our results add to evidence that intranasal oxytocin may have a more limited direct effect on human social processes than initially assumed and suggest that the direct effects of intranasal vasopressin may be similarly limited. Randomized controlled trial registration: NCT01680718.
Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews, 2018
A wealth of evidence has implicated inflammation in the development of depression. Yet, the heter... more A wealth of evidence has implicated inflammation in the development of depression. Yet, the heterogeneous nature of depression has impeded efforts to understand, prevent, and treat the disease. The purpose of this integrative review is to summarize the connections between inflammation and established core features of depression that exhibit more homogeneity than the syndrome itself: exaggerated reactivity to negative information, altered reward processing, decreased cognitive control, and somatic syndrome. For each core feature, we first provide a brief overview of its relevance to depression and neurobiological underpinnings, and then review evidence investigating a potential role of inflammation. We focus primarily on findings from experimental paradigms of exogenously-induced inflammation. We conclude that inflammation likely plays a role in exaggerated reactivity to negative information, altered reward reactivity, and somatic symptoms. There is less evidence supporting an effect of inflammation on cognitive control as assessed by standard neuropsychological measures. Finally, we discuss implications for future research and recommendationsfor how to test the role of inflammation in the pathogenesis of heterogeneous psychiatric disorders.
Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 2018
Although at first glance inflammation and social behavior may appear unrelated, research points t... more Although at first glance inflammation and social behavior may appear unrelated, research points to an important role for inflammation in shaping social processes. This review summarizes findings in this field, specifically highlighting work that provides support for the idea that inflammation can lead to (1) increases in sensitivity to negative, threatening social experiences and (2) increases in sensitivity to positive, socially rewarding experiences. These diverging sensitivities in response to inflammation may depend on context and be adaptive for recuperation and recovery from illness. This review also discusses the implications of these findings for health and future research, including implications for depression, loneliness, and inflammatory disorders.
Neuropsychopharmacology : official publication of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology, Jan 14, 2016
Although it has commonly been assumed that the immune system and the processes that govern social... more Although it has commonly been assumed that the immune system and the processes that govern social behavior are separate, non-communicating entities, research over the past several decades suggests otherwise. Considerable evidence now shows that inflammatory processes and social behavior are actually powerful regulators of one another. This review first summarizes evidence that inflammatory processes regulate social behavior, leading to characteristic changes that may help an individual navigate the social environment during times of sickness. Specifically, this review shows that inflammation: (1) increases threat-related neural sensitivity to negative social experiences (eg, rejection, negative social feedback), presumably to enhance sensitivity to threats to well-being or safety in order to avoid them and (2) enhances reward-related neural sensitivity to positive social experiences (eg, viewing close others and receiving positive social feedback), presumably to increase approach-re...
Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, 2016
Social stratification has important implications for health and well-being, with individuals lowe... more Social stratification has important implications for health and well-being, with individuals lower in standing in a hierarchy experiencing worse outcomes than those higher up the social ladder. Separate lines of past research suggest that alterations in inflammatory processes and neural responses to threat may link lower social status with poorer outcomes. This study was designed to bridge these literatures to investigate the neurocognitive mechanisms linking subjective social status and inflammation. Thirty-one participants reported their subjective social status, and underwent a functional magnetic resonance imaging scan while they were socially evaluated. Participants also provided blood samples before and after the stressor, which were analysed for changes in inflammation. Results showed that lower subjective social status was associated with greater increases in inflammation. Neuroimaging data revealed lower subjective social status was associated with greater neural activity in the dorsomedial prefrontal cortex (DMPFC) in response to negative feedback. Finally, results indicated that activation in the DMPFC in response to negative feedback mediated the relation between social status and increases in inflammatory activity. This study provides the first evidence of a neurocognitive pathway linking subjective social status and inflammation, thus furthering our understanding of how social hierarchies shape neural and physiological responses to social interactions.
Psychological science, Jan 25, 2016
Self-affirmation (reflecting on important personal values) has been shown to have a range of posi... more Self-affirmation (reflecting on important personal values) has been shown to have a range of positive effects; however, the neural basis of self-affirmation is not known. Building on studies showing that thinking about self-preferences activates neural reward pathways, we hypothesized that self-affirmation would activate brain reward circuitry during functional MRI (fMRI) studies. In Study 1, with college students, making judgments about important personal values during self-affirmation activated neural reward regions (i.e., ventral striatum), whereas making preference judgments that were not self-relevant did not. Study 2 replicated these results in a community sample, again showing that self-affirmation activated the ventral striatum. These are among the first fMRI studies to identify neural processes during self-affirmation. The findings extend theory by showing that self-affirmation may be rewarding and may provide a first step toward identifying a neural mechanism by which self...
Psychosomatic Medicine, 2016
Objectives: There is a strong association between supportive ties and health. However, most resea... more Objectives: There is a strong association between supportive ties and health. However, most research has focused on the health benefits that come from the support one receives while largely ignoring the support giver and how giving may contribute to good health. Moreover, few studies have examined the neural mechanisms associated with support giving or how giving support compares to receiving support. Method: The current study assessed the relationships: a) between self-reported receiving and giving social support and vulnerability for negative psychological outcomes and b) between receiving and giving social support and neural activity to socially rewarding and stressful tasks. Thirty-six participants (mean [standard deviation] age = 22.36 [3.78] years, 44% female) completed three tasks in the functional magnetic resonance imaging scanner: 1) a stress task (mental arithmetic under evaluative threat), b) an affiliative task (viewing images of close others), and c) a prosocial task. Results: Both self-reported receiving and giving social support were associated with reduced vulnerability for negative psychological outcomes. However, across the three neuroimaging tasks, giving but not receiving support was related to reduced stress-related activity (dorsal anterior cingulate cortex [r = −0.27], left [r = −0.28] and right anterior insula [r = −0.33], and left [r = −0.32] and right amygdala [r = −0.32]) to a stress task, greater reward-related activity (left [r = 0.42] and right ventral striatum [VS; r = 0.41]) to an affiliative task, and greater caregiving-related activity (left VS [r = 0.31], right VS [r = 0.31], and septal area [r = 0.39]) to a prosocial task. Conclusions: These results contribute to an emerging literature suggesting that support giving is an overlooked contributor to how social support can benefit health.
But that's how biographies are. I mean, who's going to read about the peaceful life and times of ... more But that's how biographies are. I mean, who's going to read about the peaceful life and times of a nobody employed at the Kawasaki Municipal Library"-Haruki Murakami (1994), Dance, Dance, Dance Novelist Haruki Murakami's claim is hardly contentious. We all prefer to read a biography full of unexpected events, tragic downfalls, and hard-won victories. They take us on a journey through which we hope to glean the character of the individual and perhaps some insight into human nature more generally. It is not that the simple life of the librarian has any fewer events filling the days or years but rather that those events follow an expected repetitive pattern with little variation over time. Indeed, there are no more hours in the day for a head of state than for Murakami's librarian, just more memorable ones. Just as we prefer the miraculous to the mundane, the tragic to the trivial, and conflict over commonplace in choosing which biographies to read, we often rely on similar distinctions in understanding and defining ourselves. We look to those moments in our past when we were faced with obstables for which our daily routine, and the mental habits formed through this routine, could not guarantee safe passage. Should I be a lawyer or a doctor? Should I be a Democrat or Republican? Should I stand up for the student who is being picked on or keep quiet? If these situations have not been a part of one's routine, how is one to go forward? There seems to be no alternative but to "assert oneself" in these cases and use one's "free will," or at least that is how these episodes are often experienced in retrospect. These are the moments when the self seems to burst onto the scene, AU: Quote marks needed only if this is a character speaking within Murakami's novel.; pls. advise. Also, please add closing punctuation: question mark? period?
Brain Mapping, 2015
This article was originally published in Brain Mapping: An Encyclopedic Reference, published by E... more This article was originally published in Brain Mapping: An Encyclopedic Reference, published by Elsevier, and the attached copy is provided by Elsevier for the author's benefit and for the benefit of the author's institution, for non-commercial research and educational use including without limitation use in instruction at your institution, sending it to specific colleagues who you know, and providing a copy to your institution's administrator.
Psychosomatic Medicine, 2007
Objective: Mindfulness is a process whereby one is aware and receptive to present moment experien... more Objective: Mindfulness is a process whereby one is aware and receptive to present moment experiences. Although mindfulnessenhancing interventions reduce pathological mental and physical health symptoms across a wide variety of conditions and diseases, the mechanisms underlying these effects remain unknown. Converging evidence from the mindfulness and neuroscience literature suggests that labeling affect may be one mechanism for these effects. Methods: Participants (n ϭ 27) indicated trait levels of mindfulness and then completed an affect labeling task while undergoing functional magnetic resonance imaging. The labeling task consisted of matching facial expressions to appropriate affect words (affect labeling) or to gender-appropriate names (gender labeling control task). Results: After controlling for multiple individual difference measures, dispositional mindfulness was associated with greater widespread prefrontal cortical activation, and reduced bilateral amygdala activity during affect labeling, compared with the gender labeling control task. Further, strong negative associations were found between areas of prefrontal cortex and right amygdala responses in participants high in mindfulness but not in participants low in mindfulness. Conclusions: The present findings with a dispositional measure of mindfulness suggest one potential neurocognitive mechanism for understanding how mindfulness meditation interventions reduce negative affect and improve health outcomes, showing that mindfulness is associated with enhanced prefrontal cortical regulation of affect through labeling of negative affective stimuli.
Psychological Science, 2013
Many of people’s closest bonds grow out of socially warm exchanges and the warm feelings associat... more Many of people’s closest bonds grow out of socially warm exchanges and the warm feelings associated with being socially connected. Indeed, the neurobiological mechanisms underlying thermoregulation may be shared by those that regulate social warmth, the experience of feeling connected to other people. To test this possibility, we placed participants in a functional MRI scanner and asked them to (a) read socially warm and neutral messages from friends and family and (b) hold warm and neutral-temperature objects (a warm pack and a ball, respectively). Findings showed an overlap between physical and social warmth: Participants felt warmer after reading the positive (compared with neutral) messages and more connected after holding the warm pack (compared with the ball). In addition, neural activity during social warmth overlapped with neural activity during physical warmth in the ventral striatum and middle insula, but neural activity did not overlap during another pleasant task (soft t...
Psychological Science, 2007
Putting feelings into words (affect labeling) has long been thought to help manage negative emoti... more Putting feelings into words (affect labeling) has long been thought to help manage negative emotional experiences; however, the mechanisms by which affect labeling produces this benefit remain largely unknown. Recent neuroimaging studies suggest a possible neurocognitive pathway for this process, but methodological limitations of previous studies have prevented strong inferences from being drawn. A functional magnetic resonance imaging study of affect labeling was conducted to remedy these limitations. The results indicated that affect labeling, relative to other forms of encoding, diminished the response of the amygdala and other limbic regions to negative emotional images. Additionally, affect labeling produced increased activity in a single brain region, right ventrolateral prefrontal cortex (RVLPFC). Finally, RVLPFC and amygdala activity during affect labeling were inversely correlated, a relationship that was mediated by activity in medial prefrontal cortex (MPFC). These result...
Psychological Inquiry, 2013
Chiao, Cheon, Pornpattananangkul, Mrazek, and Blizinsky offer a comprehensive review of cultural ... more Chiao, Cheon, Pornpattananangkul, Mrazek, and Blizinsky offer a comprehensive review of cultural neuroscience research. For such a young field, cultural neuroscience has made great strides in the effort to understand the neural and genetic mechanisms underlying cultural differences in psychology. Here, we pose a set of questions that, if addressed in the future, may help develop the field. First, can cultural neuroscientists more deeply probe how environmental factors, such as pathogen threats, may have influenced genetic selection and, in turn, cultural differences in psychology (i.e., the culture-gene coevolutionary theory)? Second, can cultural neuroscientists help unravel whether and how aspects of cultural psychology are susceptible to change? Third, what can a cultural neuroscience perspective give back to other, related disciplines such as social cognitive neuroscience, genetics, and psychology more broadly?
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2011
Although it has long been hypothesized that attachment figures provide individuals with a sense o... more Although it has long been hypothesized that attachment figures provide individuals with a sense of safety and security, the neural mechanisms underlying attachment-induced safety have not been explored. Here, we investigated whether an attachment figure acts as a safety signal by exploring whether viewing an attachment figure during a threatening experience (physical pain) led to increased activity in a neural region associated with safety signaling, the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (VMPFC), and corresponding reductions in pain. Female participants in long-term romantic relationships were scanned as they received painful stimuli while viewing pictures of their partner and control images (stranger, object). Consistent with the idea that the attachment figure may signal safety, results revealed that viewing partner pictures while receiving painful stimulation led to reductions in self-reported pain ratings, reductions in pain-related neural activity (dorsal anterior cingulate cortex...
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 2008
Psychosocial resources have been tied to lower psychological and biological responses to stress. ... more Psychosocial resources have been tied to lower psychological and biological responses to stress. The present research replicated this relationship and extended it by examining how differences in dispositional reactivity of certain neural structures may underlie this relationship. Two hypotheses were examined: (a) psychosocial resources are tied to decreased sensitivity to threat and/or (b) psychosocial resources are associated with enhanced prefrontal inhibition of threat responses during threat regulation. Results indicated that participants with greater psychosocial resources exhibited significantly less cortisol reactivity following a stress task, as predicted. Analyses using functional magnetic resonance imaging revealed that psychosocial resources were associated with greater right ventrolateral prefrontal cortex and less amygdala activity during a threat regulation task but were not associated with less amygdala activity during a threat sensitivity task. Mediational analyses suggest that the relation of psychosocial resources to low cortisol reactivity was mediated by lower amygdala activity during threat regulation. Results suggest that psychosocial resources are associated with lower cortisol responses to stress by means of enhanced inhibition of threat responses during threat regulation, rather than by decreased sensitivity to threat.
Psychosomatic Medicine, 2012
Experiences of social rejection or loss have been described as some of the most 'painful' experie... more Experiences of social rejection or loss have been described as some of the most 'painful' experiences that we, as humans, face and perhaps for good reason. Because of our prolonged period of immaturity, the social attachment system may have co-opted the pain system, borrowing the pain signal to prevent the detrimental consequences of social separation. This review summarizes a program of research that has explored the idea that experiences of physical and social pain rely on shared neural substrates. First, evidence showing that social pain activates painrelated neural regions is reviewed. Then, studies exploring some of the expected consequences of such a physical-social pain overlap are summarized. These studies demonstrate: 1) that individuals who are more sensitive to one kind of pain are also more sensitive to the other and 2) that factors that increase or decrease one kind of pain alter the other in a similar manner. Finally, what these shared neural substrates mean for our understanding of socially painful experience is discussed. Keywords social pain; physical pain; dorsal anterior cingulate cortex; anterior insula; brain; fMRI Psychologists have long noted the importance of social connection for human survival and have suggested that humans have a fundamental "need to belong" or to be socially connected to others [1-3]. Recent models have attempted to advance this idea further by proposing that, like other basic needs, a lack of social connection may feel "painful." Specifically, we and others have argued that there may be an overlap in the neural circuitry underlying experiences of physical pain and "social pain"-the painful feelings following social rejection or social loss [4-8]. From an evolutionary perspective, the idea that a lack of social connection feels "painful" makes good sense. As a mammalian species, humans are born relatively immature, without the capacity to feed or fend for themselves and instead rely almost completely on a caregiver to provide care and nourishment. Because of this prolonged period of mammalian immaturity, the social attachment system-which promotes social bonding-may have piggybacked onto the physical pain system, borrowing the pain signal itself to indicate when social relationships are threatened, thus promoting survival [8]. In other words, to the extent that being separated from a caregiver is such a severe threat to survival, being "hurt" by experiences of social separation may be an adaptive way to prevent them. Indeed, our language provides nice anecdotal evidence for the hypothesis that social and physical pain rely on shared neural circuitry. Specifically, when we describe experiences of social pain-social rejection or social loss-we often do so with physical pain words, complaining of "hurt feelings" or "broken hearts." In fact, this pattern has been shown to exist across many different languages and is not unique to the English language [8]. Moreover, at least in the English language, we have no other means of expressing these "hurt feelings" other than through the use of physical pain words. Still, linguistic evidence
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Papers by Naomi Eisenberger