TABLE 6.
Summary by brain areas of the regions most commonly involved in the expression the different social emotions across species.
| Brain area | Neural changes in socioemotional contexts (↗ increase/↘ decrease) | Other associations–including non-imaging studies |
| ACC |
Romantic Love: ↗ in humans (Bartels and Zeki, 2000) Social and motivational reward: ↗ in macaques (Chang et al., 2013) Jealousy: in ↗ in male titi monkeys (Maninger et al., 2017b) (left ACC) and women (Steis et al., 2021) Grief: ↗ in women (Gündel et al., 2003) and Social Pain: in ↘ humans (Eisenberger et al., 2003) |
Distress vocalizations (Smith, 1945; MacLean and Newman, 1988; Eisenberger, 2012) Empathy-Consolation (Burkett et al., 2016) |
| Amygdala |
Romantic Love: ↘ in humans (Bartels and Zeki, 2000; Acevedo et al., 2012) at early stages but also ↗ in the longer term Long-term Bonding: ↘ in male titi monkeys (Bales et al., 2007) Jealousy: ↗ in male macaques, dogs and men; ↘ in male titi monkeys (Rilling et al., 2004; Takahashi et al., 2006; Maninger et al., 2017b; Cook et al., 2018) Loneliness: ↗ in humans (Lam et al., 2021) |
Fear (Nesse, 1990) Untrustworthiness of others (Winston et al., 2002) |
| BNST |
Mother infant attachment (Insel and Young, 2001) |
|
| Globus pallidus | Jealousy: ↗ in women (Steis et al., 2021) | |
| Hippocampus |
Romantic love and Feeling of friendship: ↗ in humans (Bartels and Zeki, 2004; Güroğlu et al., 2008; Acevedo et al., 2012) Loneliness: ↗ in humans (Lam et al., 2021) |
|
| Insula |
Romanic and maternal love:
↗ in humans (Bartels and Zeki, 2000, 2004) (medial insula) Feeling of Friendship: ↗ in humans (Acevedo et al., 2012) Jealousy: ↗ in male macaques, men and women (Rilling et al., 2004; Takahashi et al., 2006; Steis et al., 2021) (bilateral) Romantic rejection and acceptance: ↗ in humans (Hsu et al., 2020; van der Watt et al., 2021) Grief: ↗ in women (Gündel et al., 2003; O’Connor et al., 2008) and Social Pain: ↗ in humans (Eisenberger, 2012; Rotge et al., 2015) (anterior insula) and Loneliness: ↗ in humans (Lam et al., 2021) |
Distress vocalizations (Eisenberger, 2012) |
| LS |
Short-term Pair-bonding: ↗ lateral septum (D1R binding) (Hostetler et al., 2017) and Long-term Pair-bonding: ↘ in male titi monkeys (Bales et al., 2007) Jealousy: ↗ in male titi monkeys (right LS) (Maninger et al., 2017b) Separation: ↗ in male titi monkeys (Hinde et al., 2016) |
|
| MPOA |
Mother infant attachment (Insel and Young, 2001) |
|
| NAcc |
Romantic Love*: ↗ in humans (Acevedo et al., 2012), but ↘ in human in medial accumbens (Xu et al., 2011, 2012) and in titi monkeys in long-term bonds (Bales et al., 2007) *Conflicting directions Feeling of Friendship: ↗ in humans (Acevedo et al., 2012) Grief: ↗ in women (O’Connor et al., 2008) |
Separation In voles: ↘ of striatal oxytocin signaling in the nucleus accumbens shell (Bosch et al., 2016) |
| OFC |
Romantic love*:
↗ in human (Acevedo et al., 2012) and in the mid-OFC (Xu et al., 2011) and ↘ in human in medial OFC and negative correlation with happiness (Xu et al., 2011, 2012) *Conflicting directions Maternal Love: ↗ in human (Bartels and Zeki, 2004; Noriuchi et al., 2008) Feeling of Friendship: ↗ in human (Acevedo et al., 2012) and macaques (Azzi et al., 2012; Watson and Platt, 2012; Brent et al., 2014a) |
Untrustworthiness of others (Winston et al., 2002) |
| PAG |
Maternal Love: in humans (Bartels and Zeki, 2004; Noriuchi et al., 2008) Romantic Love and Feeling of Friendship: in humans (Acevedo et al., 2012) |
Maternal behaviors (Miranda-Paiva et al., 2003) Distress vocalizations (Panksepp, 1998; Eisenberger, 2012) |
| PCC |
Romantic Love: in humans (Bartels and Zeki, 2000) Jealousy: in ↗ male titi monkeys (Maninger et al., 2017b) and women (Steis et al., 2021) Grief: in women (Gündel et al., 2003) |
Happiness, Fear, sadness, and other unpleasant stimuli (Maddock, 1999) Partner choice (Maninger et al., 2017a; Yokoyama et al., 2017) |
| PFC |
Feeling of Friendship:
↗ in humans (Güroğlu et al., 2008)–ventro-medial PFC Jealousy: ↗ in women (Steis et al., 2021)–medial PFC Separation: ↗ in young macaques in the right dorsolateral PFC and ↘ in the left dorsolateral PFC (Rilling et al., 2001) and Social Pain: ↗ in humans (Eisenberger et al., 2003; Rotge et al., 2015) (rostro ventral PFC) Romantic rejection and acceptance: ↗ in humans (Hsu et al., 2020; van der Watt et al., 2021) and Loneliness: ↗ in humans (Lam et al., 2021) |
|
| PVN | Separation (short-term): ↗ in male titi monkeys (Hinde et al., 2016) | |
| PCL | Love: ↗ in humans (Acevedo et al., 2012) | |
| STS | Jealousy: ↗ in male macaques (right) and women (posterior) (Rilling et al., 2004; Takahashi et al., 2006) |
Untrustworthiness of others (Winston et al., 2002) Gaze following in macaques (Roy et al., 2014) |
| VP |
Attachment ↘ in titi monkey pair bonding (Bales et al., 2007) |
|
| VTA | Romantic Love: ↗ in humans (Bartels and Zeki, 2004; Fisher et al., 2005; Acevedo et al., 2012) |
Onset of maternal behavior (Pedersen et al., 1994; Numan and Young, 2016) Mother infant attachment (Insel and Young, 2001) |
| SN |
Love: ↗ in humans (Bartels and Zeki., 2004; Acevedo et al., 2012) Jealousy: ↗ in women (Steis et al., 2021) |
*Emphasize results going in conflicting directions.