Dembling Sarah J, Abaya Nicole M, Gianaros Peter J, Inagaki Tristen K
Department of Psychology, San Diego State University, San Diego, CA 92182, United States.
SDSU-UCSD Joint Doctoral Program in Clinical Psychology, San Diego, CA 92182, United States.
Soc Cogn Affect Neurosci. 2025 Apr 15;20(1). doi: 10.1093/scan/nsaf025.
Previous work suggests blood pressure (BP) relates to social algesia, where those with higher BP are more tolerant of social pain. The neural correlates of this association, however, are unknown. Based on findings suggesting neural regions involved in physical pain are activated during social pain, the current study explores whether BP relates to subjective and neural responses to social pain, apart from emotional responding. BP was measured, after which participants completed emotional processing and social exclusion functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) paradigms. Results replicated previous findings, with higher systolic BP related to lower trait sensitivity to social pain. However, there were no associations between BP and reported sensitivity to social pain during social exclusion. Moreover, after accounting for adiposity, we found no association between BP and anterior insula (AI) or dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (dACC) activity to exclusion. Finally, there were no reliable associations between BP and reported valence or arousal, or AI and dACC activity to emotional images. Findings partly replicate and extend prior findings on BP and emotional responding to social pain; however, they appear inconsistent with predictions at the neural level. Future experimental manipulation of BP may allow for causal inferences and adjudication of conceptual perspectives on cardiovascular contributions to social algesia.
先前的研究表明血压（BP）与社会疼痛敏感性有关，血压较高的人对社会疼痛的耐受性更强。然而，这种关联的神经相关性尚不清楚。基于有研究表明在社会疼痛期间参与身体疼痛的神经区域会被激活，本研究探讨了除情绪反应外，血压是否与对社会疼痛的主观和神经反应有关。测量了血压，之后参与者完成了情绪处理和社会排斥功能磁共振成像（fMRI）范式。结果重复了先前的发现，收缩压越高与对社会疼痛的特质敏感性越低相关。然而，在社会排斥期间，血压与报告的对社会疼痛的敏感性之间没有关联。此外，在考虑肥胖因素后，我们发现血压与前脑岛（AI）或背侧前扣带回皮质（dACC）对排斥的活动之间没有关联。最后，血压与报告的效价或唤醒之间，以及AI和dACC对情绪图像的活动之间没有可靠的关联。研究结果部分重复并扩展了先前关于血压和对社会疼痛的情绪反应的研究结果；然而，它们在神经层面上似乎与预测不一致。未来对血压的实验性操纵可能有助于进行因果推断，并对心血管系统对社会疼痛敏感性的贡献的概念性观点进行判定。
