Does losing money truly hurt? The shared neural bases of monetary loss and pain.

ABSTRACT

Both monetary loss and pain have been studied for decades, but evidence supporting the relationship between them is still lacking. We conducted a meta-analysis to explore the overlapping brain regions between monetary loss and pain, including physical pain and social pain. Regardless of the type of pain experienced, activation of the anterior insula was a shared neural representation of monetary loss and pain. The network representation pattern of monetary loss was more similar to that of social pain than that of physical pain. In conclusion, our research provided evidence of the common neural correlates of monetary loss and pain.