Can a common painkiller relieve the pain of heartbreak?

You have probably felt excluded from a group or experienced a breakup at some point in your life, situations that can cause such intense pain that it feels physical, as if something were breaking inside you.

Sometimes this emotional pain can lead to depression and affect us significantly. Well, it's not just a feeling, as 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, psychologist Naomi Eisenberger and her colleagues demonstrated that the pain caused by social rejection is not just a metaphor. They found that people who are excluded from a simple virtual game activate regions of the brain involved in processing physical pain, such as the anterior cingulate cortex and the prefrontal cortex.

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 close bonds has been crucial to the survival of our species.

In another study, it was observed that when people who had recently experienced a break-up saw photographs of their ex-partners and relived the rejection, brain regions associated with the sensory processing of physical pain were activated, in this case the secondary somatosensory cortex and the posterior dorsal insula.

These findings suggest that emotional pain not only shares affective components with physical pain but also sensory ones, providing a neurological basis for the expression ‘rejection hurts’.

A painkiller to ease a broken heart

If emotional and physical pain share neural pathways, could a common medication such as paracetamol, used to relieve physical pain, also alleviate emotional suffering?

One study suggests so. In this research, participants who took paracetamol daily for three weeks reported less emotional pain in situations of social rejection compared to those who received a placebo, an inert substance with no therapeutic effects.

In addition, a decrease in activity was detected in the brain regions associated with pain processing (the anterior cingulate cortex and the anterior insula) in those who had taken the painkiller.

Although the above results indicate that paracetamol could reduce both behavioural and neural responses to social pain, once again demonstrating the overlap between physical and emotional pain in our brain, it is important to note that this medication should not be considered a solution for deep emotional suffering or disorders such as depression.

While these results open new avenues for understanding the interconnection between body and mind, further research is needed to determine the clinical and ethical implications of using this type of physical painkiller in the treatment of emotional pain.

When inflammation in the body saddens the mind

The connection between the body and mind is deeper than we often imagine and is bidirectional. Various studies have shown that inflammatory processes in the body, such as those that occur during infections or autoimmune diseases, can influence our mood.

When activated, the immune system releases pro-inflammatory cytokines that can affect brain chemistry and lead to feelings of sadness or irritability. In this context, a study analysed 14 clinical trials involving more than 6,000 participants and found that some anti-inflammatory treatments, especially celecoxib, showed a significant reduction in depressive symptoms.

However, it is essential to note that the use of anti-inflammatory drugs to treat depression is not yet standard practice, and further studies are needed to fully understand their efficacy and safety.

The dark side: opioids and depression

In the search for effective treatments for resistant depression, some researchers have explored the use of drugs that mimic our own endorphins: opioids.

Thus, very low doses of buprenorphine, a partial opioid, have been found to significantly reduce suicidal thoughts in patients with severe suicidal ideation without serious side effects or withdrawal symptoms after treatment discontinuation.

However, the use of opioids poses a significant dilemma. These drugs are highly addictive and can trigger public health crises, such as the 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 further research to also evaluate its long-term safety and efficacy in the treatment of depression.

Emotional pain is not just a feeling

These discoveries reveal that emotional pain is not just an abstract feeling, but a real experience that involves our bodies in the same way as a physical injury.

Understanding this helps us to be more compassionate towards ourselves and others. When someone experiences loss, rejection or depression, it is not enough to say ‘cheer up’. Their brain is activating the same alarms as when we suffer a physical injury.

Furthermore, the aforementioned research leads us to question whether we want to treat sadness as if it were a disease of the body, or what the risks might be of using drugs that influence our deepest emotions.

Science offers us tools, but we must decide how and when to use them, taking into account both the relief of suffering and the dangers of medicalising every human emotion.