Bethesda, MD, USA. Does your position in a social hierarchy strongly influence your motivation and impact on your physical and mental health? Yes, M'am. Studies have shown that social status strongly predicts health. Animals chronically stressed by their hierarchical position have high rates of cardiovascular and depression/anxiety-like syndromes. A classic study of British civil servants found that the lower one ranked, the higher the odds for developing cardiovascular disease and dying early.

 

Lower social rank likely compromises health through psychological effects, such as by limiting control over one's life and interactions with others. However, in hierarchies that allow for more upward mobility, those at the top who stand to lose their positions can have higher risk for stress-related illness.

Little has been known about how the human brain translates such factors into health risk. However, neuroscientists have instensified their investigations into how different parts of the  brain are structured and which functions influence human behavior. New imaging studies have identified human brain circuitry associated with social status.

 

In this study, circuitry activated by important events responded to a potential change in hierarchical status as much as it did to winning money. They found direct evidence that different brain areas are activated when a person moves up or down in a pecking order — or simply views perceived social superiors or inferiors.

The findings were reported by researchers at the US National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) of the US National Institutes of Health (NIH). Caroline Zink, Ph.D., Andreas Meyer-Lindenberg, M.D., Ph.D., and colleagues of the NIMH Genes Cognition and Psychosis Program, report on their functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study in the journal Neuron.  Meyer-Lindenberg is now director of Germany's Central Institute of Mental Health.

 

The NIMH researchers created an artificial social hierarchy in which 72 participants played an interactive computer game for money. They were assigned a status that they were told was based on their playing skill. In fact, the game outcomes were predetermined and the other "players" simulated by computer. While their brain activity was monitored by fMRI, participants intermittently saw pictures and scores of an inferior and a superior "player" they thought were simultaneously playing in other rooms.

 

Although they knew the perceived players' scores would not affect their own outcomes or reward — and were instructed to ignore them — participants' brain activity and behavior were highly influenced by their position in the implied hierarchy.

 

"The processing of hierarchical information seems to be hard-wired, occurring even outside of an explicitly competitive environment, underscoring how important it is for us," said Zink.

Key study findings.The area that signals an event's importance, called the ventral striatum, responded to the prospect of a rise or fall in rank as much as it did to the monetary reward, confirming the high value accorded social status.

 

 

 

"Such activation of emotional pain circuitry may underlie a heightened risk for stress-related health problems among competitive individuals," suggested Meyer-Lindenberg.

 

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"Our position in social hierarchies strongly influences motivation as well as physical and mental health," said NIMH Director Thomas R Insel, M.D. "This first glimpse into how the brain processes that information advances our understanding of an important factor that can impact public health."

 

Also participating in the study were Yunxia Tong, Qiang Chen, Danielle Bassett, and Jason Stein, NIMH.

 

Know Your Place: Neural Processing of Social Hierarchy in Humans. Caroline F. Zink, Yunxia Tong, Qiang Chen, Danielle S. Bassett, Jason L. Stein, and Andreas Meyer-Lindenberg. Neuron 2008 58: 273-283.

Summary. Social hierarchies guide behavior in many species, including humans, where status also has an enormous impact on motivation and health. However, little is known about the underlying neural representation of social hierarchies in humans. In the present study, we identify dissociable neural responses to perceived social rank using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) in an interactive, simulated social context. In both stable and unstable social hierarchies, viewing a superior individual differentially engaged perceptual-attentional, saliency, and cognitive systems, notably dorsolateral prefrontal cortex. In the unstable hierarchy setting, additional regions related to emotional processing ( amygdala), social cognition (medial prefrontal cortex), and behavioral readiness were recruited. Furthermore, social hierarchical consequences of performance were neurally dissociable and of comparable salience to monetary reward, providing a neural basis for the high motivational value of status. Our results identify neural mechanisms that may mediate the enormous influence of social status on human behavior and health.

 

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