Brain treats social and physical pain differently

Contradicting a common belief, a new study has found that the brain processes physical and social pain differently.

"Physical pain and social rejection do activate similar regions of the brain," said lead author of the study Choong-Wan Woo from the University of Colorado in the US.

"But by using a new analysis tool, we were able to look more closely and see that they are actually quite different," Woo added.

For the study, the researchers used a technique - multivariate pattern analysis -recently borrowed from the computer science field by neuroscientists to examine brain scans that were taken while people looked at a picture of someone who had rejected them.

The results were compared to brain scans made of the same people when they were receiving a painful heat stimulus.

The results of the new study are important because they help understand how social pain can be measured objectively, and how the brain creates these unique distress experiences.

"Though there are some similar psychological features between physical pain and social pain, they appeared to be quite different in the brain," Woo said.

The study appeared in the journal Nature Communications.