Study carried out by BrainLat of the UAI School of Psychology: The brain anticipates social rejection

The study shows that when we anticipate stressful situations, our body undergoes internal changes.

María José Pérez Bonet, UAI Journalist.- Getting ahead of social situations produces strong reactions in our body, however, most of the scientific evidence refers to how people react at the very moment they are exposed to a situation of social stress or after the situation.

A recent study shows what happens a priori in the organism when
could experience a situation of social stress. The Allostatic-interoceptive study
anticipation of social rejection, prepared by researchers from the Research Center
of Brain Health in Latin America (BrainLat UAI) demonstrates how the brain anticipates the
social rejection by regulating bodily signals through a process called
“allostatic-interoceptive” anticipation.

This process, characterized by a joint operation of allostasis (equilibrium
of the body systems to be able to anticipate stressful situations, and prepare the
body to deliver responses that are efficient and adaptive) and interoception
(sensation or perception of internal bodily signals), works based on predictions
that the brain performs on events close to occurring, before which it commands a
series of balancing processes in the organism to adjust the current state of the body
towards the necessary state to face that eventuality. For example, preparing
to fight or flee when seeing someone with intent to assault approaching you, the
brain modifies our body to prepare for it by increasing the
blood supply to the muscles relevant to fighting, such as the muscles of the
upper trunk, or those of flight, like those of the lower trunk, in order to avoid tripping over the
wanting to run due to insufficient muscle tension.

The researcher and member of BrainLat UAI, Joaquín Migeot, explains that “we analyzed the
brain response of adolescents when anticipating the acceptance or rejection of the invitation of
a stranger on a social network.” He adds that the results show that “when the
uncertainty about the outcome of the invitation is high, the brain triggers in the
body a process to prepare for and cope with a potential stressful event, such as
it could be the rejection of the invitation”.

The study analyzed the brain activity of 58 adolescents, as well as the intracranial activity of three patients with intractable epilepsy. The tests were performed while the
Participants performed an action and had to infer whether they would be accepted or rejected by
a stranger.

New research parameters “Allostatic-interoceptive” anticipation proposes that the brain integrates signals from the organism itself, but also from the environment, and thus can anticipate possible scenarios and generate responses. In this way, it is aligned with an integrating vision of the brain, body and environment.

The results reveal that this process is intensified when the result of the
social interaction is unexpected, because the organism prepares for a possible
stressful event.

“We are currently interested in studying how stressful elements associated with the
disparity in the environment in which we live, such as the lack of resources
economics, insecurity in the neighborhood, or pollution can affect the
allostasis in individuals exposed to those conditions. In this way, we search
study how disparity permeates the biology of individuals”, Migeot concluded.