Acc Ghost Quotes

And it’s in the cortex—the ACC and elsewhere—that opiates help us endure pain by reducing not its physical but its emotional impact. A recent imaging study showed that the ACC also “lights up” when people feel the pain of social rejection.11 The brains of healthy adult volunteers were scanned as they were mentally participating in a game and then suddenly “excluded.” Even this mild and obviously artificial “rejection” lit up the ACC and caused feelings of hurt. In other words, we “feel” physical and emotional pain in the same part of the brain—and that, in turn, is crucial to our bonding with others who are important to us.

Anatomically, physical pain is registered in one part of the brain, the thalamus, but its subjective impact is experienced in another part, the anterior cingulate cortex, or ACC. The brain gets the pain message in the thalamus, but “feels” it in the ACC. This latter area “lights up,” or is activated, when we are reacting to the pain stimulus. And it’s in the cortex—the ACC and elsewhere—that opiates help us endure pain by reducing not its physical but its emotional impact.