What’s BETWEEN Grief and Physical Pain? Robert Sapolsky’s Answer Will BREAK Your Brain

Описание: What’s BETWEEN Grief and Physical Pain? Robert Sapolsky’s Answer Will BREAK Your Brain

You think grief is something you feel.
Sadness. Loss. Emptiness.

But why does your chest hurt?
Why does your throat tighten... before you even start crying?
Why does your stomach drop like you’ve been punched... even though nothing touched you?
Most people don’t ask.
They say “heartbreak.”
Or “stress response.”
Or “it just hurts.”
But that’s not an answer.
When you really ask why grief can feel like physical pain... you find something that changes how you see your own body.
Not as something that reacts to emotion...
...but as the thing generating it.

Claim: Social rejection and social loss recruit neural circuitry that overlaps with physical pain processing (particularly distress-related regions), supporting the idea that social loss is treated as injury by the brain.
Source: Eisenberger, N. I., Lieberman, M. D., & Williams, K. D. (2003). Does rejection hurt? An fMRI study of social exclusion. Science, 302(5643), 290–292.Does Rejection Hurt? An fMRI Study of Social Exclusion

Claim: The brain constructs subjective feeling states using interoception — the sensing and representation of internal bodily states — with the insular cortex playing a central role.
Source: Craig, A. D. (2002). How do you feel? Interoception: the sense of the physiological condition of the body. Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 3(8), 655–666. https://doi

Claim: Protective withdrawal reflexes (e.g., removing a hand from a hot surface) are initiated before conscious awareness, demonstrating that bodily responses to threat precede subjective experience.
Source: Kandel, E. R., Koester, J. D., Mack, S. H., & Siegelbaum, S. A. (2021). Principles of Neural Science (6th ed.). McGraw-Hill. (Chapter: Spinal Reflexes)

Claim: Acute stress responses involve fast neural signaling followed by slower endocrine responses; cortisol levels typically peak approximately 20–40 minutes after stress onset.
Source: Dickerson, S. S., & Kemeny, M. E. (2004). Acute stressors and cortisol responses: A theoretical integration and synthesis of laboratory research. Psychological Bulletin, 130(3), 355–391.
APA PsycNet

Claim: Heart rate variability (HRV) reflects autonomic nervous system flexibility; reduced HRV indicates a shift toward threat/vigilance states with decreased physiological adaptability.
Source: Berntson, G. G., Bigger, J. T., Jr., Eckberg, D. L., et al. (1997). Heart rate variability: Origins, methods, and interpretive caveats. Psychophysiology, 34(6), 623–648. https://doi

Claim: Endogenous opioid systems contribute to social bonding and feelings of connection; disruption of these systems alters perceived social closeness, supporting a biological basis for social “withdrawal” states.
Source: Inagaki, T. K., Irwin, M. R., Moieni, M., Jevtic, I., Breen, E. C., & Eisenberger, N. I. (2016). The role of the endogenous opioid system in social connection. Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, 11(5), 741–748. Opioids and social bonding: naltrexone reduces feelings of social connection

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