Probably at some point it has been excluded from a group or has experienced a love break, situations that can cause such intense pain that it seems physical, as if something broke inside.
Sometimes this emotional pain can lead to a depressive state and significantly affect us. Well, it is not just a sensation, since science has shown that emotional pain and physical pain share certain pain circuits in our brain.
Rejection and heartbreak hurt
In an interesting study published in Science In 2003, the psychologist Naomi Eisenberger and her colleagues showed that the pain that causes to be socially rejected is not just a metaphor. They detected that people who are excluded from a simple virtual game activate regions involved in physical pain such as the anterior cingulated cortex and prefrontral.
From an evolutionary point of view, this could suggest that the brain has recycled physical pain circuits to also process social pain, probably because maintaining narrow links has been crucial for the survival of our species.
In another research work it was observed that, when people who had recently experienced a love breakdown saw photographs of their ex -partners and revived rejection, brain regions associated with the sensory processing of physical pain were activated, in this case the secondary somatosensory cortex and the back of the dorsal.
These findings suggest that emotional pain not only shares affective components with physical pain but also sensory, which provides a neurological basis for the expression “the rejection hurts.”
An analgesic to relieve a broken heart
If emotional and physical pain share neuronal routes, could a common medication such as paracetamol, used to relieve physical pain, also mitigate emotional suffering?
A study suggests yes. In this research, those participants who took Paracetamol daily and for three weeks reported less emotional pain in situations of social rejection compared to those who received a placebo, an inert substance without therapeutic effects.
In addition, a decrease in the activity of the brain regions associated with pain processing (the anterior cingulated cortex and the previous insula) was detected in those who had ingested the analgesic.
Although the above results indicate that paracetamol could reduce both behavioral and neuronal responses to social pain, which again shows the overlap between physical and emotional pain in our brain, it is important to point out that this medicine should not be considered a solution for deep emotional suffering or disorders such as depression.
Although these results open new paths to understand the interconnection between body and mind, more research is required to determine the clinical and ethical implications of using this type of physical analgesics in the treatment of emotional pain.
When the inflammation of the body saddens the mind
The connection between body and mind is deeper than we often imagine and bidirectional. Various research has shown that inflammatory processes in the body, such as those that occur during autoimmune infections or diseases, can influence our mood.
The immune system, when activated, releases proinflammatory cytokines that can affect brain chemistry and lead us to feelings of sadness or irritability. In this context, in a study 14 clinical trials were analyzed, with more than 6,000 participants, and it was found that some anti -inflammatory treatments, especially Celecoxib, showed a significant reduction in depressive symptoms.
However, it is essential that the use of anti -inflammatories to treat depression is not yet a standard practice and more studies are required to fully understand its effectiveness and safety.
The dark side: opioid and depression
In the search for effective treatments for resistant depression, some researchers have explored the use of medicines that mimic our own endorphins: opioids.
Thus, it has been detected that the effect of very low doses of buprenorphine, a partial opioid, in patients with severe suicidal ideation significantly reduces such thoughts without serious side effects or symptoms of abstinence after the interruption of treatment.
However, the use of opioids raises an important dilemma. These drugs are highly addictive and can trigger public health crisis, such as opioid epidemic in the United States. Although the findings on buprenorphine are promising, it is crucial to consider the associated risks and the need for more investigations to also evaluate their long -term safety and efficiency in the treatment of depression.
Emotional pain is not just a feeling
These discoveries reveal to us that emotional pain is not only an abstract feeling, but a real experience that involves our body in the same way as a physical wound.
Understanding it helps us to be more compassionate with ourselves and others. When someone suffers a loss, rejection or depression, it is not enough to say “cheer up.” His brain is activating the same alarms as when we suffer a physical wound.
In addition, the aforementioned research leads us to question whether we want to treat sadness as if it were a body disease, or what can be the irrigation of using drugs that influence our deepest emotions.
Science offers us tools, but we have to decide how and when to use them, taking into account both the relief of suffering and the dangers of medicalizing each human emotion.
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