Projects / Programmes
Neural processes underlying the social regulation of emotion and pain
| Code |
Science |
Field |
Subfield |
| 3.03.00 |
Medical sciences |
Neurobiology |
|
| Code |
Science |
Field |
| 3.01 |
Medical and Health Sciences |
Basic medicine |
Social support, Social emotion regulation, Social pain modulation, Romantic partner support, Hierarchical pain processing, Large-scale brain networks, Mechanistic brain analysis, fMRI, EEG, Computational modelling
Data for the last 5 years (citations for the last 10 years) on
April 25, 2024;
A3 for period
2018-2022
Data for ARIS tenders (
04.04.2019 – Programme tender,
archive
)
| Database |
Linked records |
Citations |
Pure citations |
Average pure citations |
| WoS |
211 |
4,515 |
3,863 |
18.31 |
| Scopus |
213 |
4,931 |
4,236 |
19.89 |
Researchers (10)
Organisations (2)
Abstract
Our negative feelings are highly influenced by people around us. As such, various forms of social support can attenuate aversive emotions, reduce pain, and beneficially affect our body’s physiological systems. Social emotion and pain regulation are prevalent in our lives, but above and beyond the use of social support for daily emotional and physical challenges, this simple and natural phenomenon could eventually be used to facilitate treatment of major depression and chronic pain, debilitating and exceedingly prevalent conditions. The overarching aim of the proposed project is to significantly extend our knowledge of neural systems underlying the social regulation of emotion and pain. Specifically, the project will examine mechanistic behavioural and neural correlates of the two processes, using advanced analyses, such as graph-based and multilevel mediation analyses and Bayesian computational modelling. Concerning emotion, social emotion regulation is an integral part of psychotherapy – an effective treatment for major depression. However, only a few neuroimaging studies investigated the neural underpinnings of social emotion regulation, and the studies focused solely on local brain activation changes. Specific neurobiological theories suggest that emotional processing with or without emotion regulation is realised via larger interconnected functional brain networks. However, knowledge of global interaction changes during social emotion regulation is still missing. The first objective of the proposed project is to illuminate global brain interaction patterns during two types of social emotion regulation, social reappraisal and supportive social presence. With this, we will provide a complementary picture of brain changes during social emotion regulation. Furthermore, gaining a deeper understanding of social reappraisal and supportive social presence can eventually help to facilitate the psychotherapeutic treatment of major depression. Concerning pain, social support represents a potential low-cost, non-pharmacological natural analgesic. However, to eventually use social support for pain therapy, we need to first better understand the process by which social support influences pain. Does the supportive presence of a romantic partner attenuate pain via attentional distraction or by increasing positive emotions? What is more, partner’s support occasionally makes pain worse (both chronic and acute pain), and the proposed reasons for this might be personal and partner characteristics and/or behaviours. With regard to neurobiology, studies offer first clues about the neural underpinnings of social support effects on pain, but they either used a proxy of social support (i.e., viewing partner’s pictures), or manipulated physical presence instead. Thus, a rounded account of how social support by a romantic partner affects the experience of acute pain is currently still missing. The second, third and fourth objectives of the proposed project together focus on providing a comprehensive depiction of how romantic partner support affects pain. Specifically, we will perform a study with romantic couples, in which the male partner will support the female one during pain stimulation while we concurrently measure her brain activity using electroencephalography (EEG). We will then 1) contrast positive and negative effects of romantic partner support on the perception of pain, 2) determine whether a romantic partner affects pain via attentional and/or emotional mechanisms, and 3) construct a Bayesian computational model of how the support of a romantic partner influences the experience of pain. Better understanding how social support affects pain can help us select and construct situations and circumstances in which individuals would benefit most from social support. Looking to the future, such understanding represents an important first step to eventually developing targeted primary and/or adjuvant treatments for chronic pain.
