PHYSICAL, EMOTIONAL, AND SOCIAL PAIN DURING COVID-19 PANDEMIC-RELATED SOCIAL ISOLATION

The recognition and management of the socio-emotional pain facing the COVID-19 pandemic refer to different, but interdependent, clues regarding cognitive and emotional aspects of the pandemic threat, considering the need of social distancing as a prophylactic procedure to avoid spreading the pathogen. The socio-emotional condition at the time of outbreak subsidizes the (re)modulation of interactive neural circuits underlying the risk assessment behaviour at physical, emotional, and social levels. Experiences of social isolation, exclusion or affective loss are generally considered to be some of the most “painful” things that people face. The threats of social disconnection are processed by some of the same neural structures that process basic threats to survival. The lack of social connection can be "painful" due to an overlap in the neural circuitry responsible for both physical and emotional pain related to feelings of social rejection. Indeed, many of us go to great lengths to avoid situations that may engender these experiences. Because of this, this work focusses on times of pandemic, the somatization mentioned above seeks the interconnection and/or interdependence between neural systems related to emotional and cognitive processes, so that the person involved in that aversive social environment becomes aware of himself, the others, and the threatening situation experienced to avoid daily psychological and neuropsychiatric effects. Social distancing during the isolation evokes the formation of social distress, raising the intensity of learned fear that people acquire, consequently enhancing the emotional and social pain.