Description

Social pain, the negative subjective experience following real or perceived damage to social connection, is a common and impactful experience with health ramifications. However, individuals differ in their sensitivity to experiences of social pain. Recent evidence suggests sensitivity to social pain may vary according to a cardiovascular factor that also modulates sensitivity to physical pain: resting (tonic) blood pressure. Those with higher resting blood pressure display lower sensitivity to physical pain. We recently extended these findings to the domain of social pain, but the mechanisms by which the link exists remain unknown. In this ongoing preliminary study, we investigate a neural pathway by which resting blood pressure and sensitivity may be linked. The sample includes 15 individuals aged 19-37 years old (Mage= 24.13, SD= 4.79), with 13 (87%) female participants, recruited from the San Diego community. Resting blood pressure (BP) was measured before participants were scanned using a 3T Siemens Magnetom Prisma MRI scanner. In the scanner, participants completed a virtual ball-tossing game, Cyberball, to simulate an experience of social pain through exclusion. Following the scan, participants completed the Need Threat Scale (NTS) to assess sensitivity to social pain during the exclusion round of Cyberball, and personality questionnaires that assess trait-levels of sensitivity to social pain (Mehrabian Sensitivity to Rejection Scale; Fear of Negative Evaluation). Associations between resting BP and responses to the NTS will be evaluated with linear regression, adjusting for covariates known to influence resting BP. Similar to previous research, we expect to find that resting BP will be inversely associated with individual differences in sensitivity to Cyberball (i.e., higher scores on the NTS, and greater activity in the dACC and AI to exclusion vs. inclusion). If an association between resting BP and individual differences in social pain sensitivity to Cyberball is found, we will test whether dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (dACC) and anterior insula (AI) activity to Cyberball accounts for the association. Results may have implications for cardiovascular disease, the leading cause of death worldwide.