Pain and heartache are bound together in our brains

Like a jab in the arm with a red-hot poker, social rejection hurts. Literally. A new study finds that our brains make little distinction between the sting of being rebuffed by peers — or by a lover, boss or family member — and the physical pain that arises from disease or injury. The new findings are published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Researchers from the University of Michigan, Columbia University and the University of Colorado put 40 individuals who were brokenhearted by a recent breakup into a brain scanner and watched as each dumpee gazed upon a photo of his or her dumper and pondered the hurt he or she felt at having been spurned. In separate scanning sessions, the subjects had the laboratory equivalent of a hot poker held to the forearm (an 8 on a 10-point pain scale).

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