Reply to Iannetti and Mouraux: What functional MRI responses to physical pain tell us about why social rejection “hurts”

We recently reported that having participants who experienced an unwanted breakup view a photograph of their ex-partner as they thought about being rejected activated portions of the operculoinsular cortex strongly implicated in physical pain—the dorsal posterior insula (dpINS) and OP1 (the most caudal area of the parietal operculum). The same regions were also activated when participants experienced physical pain (1). These findings were notable for two reasons. First, a wealth of data suggest that these regions, in particular dpINS, support physical pain sensation. As Craig noted recently, “the dorsal posterior insula contains the primary cortical sensory representation of temperature and pain in …