Are we humans simply remodelled apes? Chimps with a tweak? Is the difference between our genomes so minuscule it justifies the argument that our cognition and behaviour must also differ from chimps by barely a whisker? If “chimps are us” should we grant them human rights? Or is this one of the biggest fallacies in the study of evolution? NOT A CHIMP argues that these similarities have been grossly over-exaggerated - we should keep chimps at arm’s length. Are humans cognitively unique after all?
Tuesday, 3 August 2010
Social Rejection Linked With Inflammatory Responses To Social Stress
In NOT A CHIMP I explain the crucial role of areas of the social brain like the anterior cingulate cortex and insula in registering pain or fear in others and feeding this important social data to the frontal cortex so that higher order appropriate responses can be generated. In this paper a group of psychologists have taken this idea a step further. Knowing that acute social stress is often linked to inflammatory conditions like cardiovascular disease and depression they subjected over 100 normal volunteers to lab-based social stressors and noticed that this increased two biochemical markers for inflammation - a tumour necrosis factor and interleukin-6. Using fMRI they then noticed a tie-up between the TNF levels and activation of insula and anterior cingulate, both of which process rejection-related stress and negative affect, suggesting a neurocognitive pathway that generates these diseases as a response to stress.