When your pain signifies my gain: neural activity while evaluating outcomes based on another person’s pain

The overlap between pain and reward processing pathways leds researchers to hypothesize that there are interactions between them in the human brain. Two hypotheses have been proposed. The “competition hypothesis” posits that reward can reduce pain-related neural activity and vice versa. The “salience hypothesis” suggests that the motivational salience of pain and reward can be mutually reinforced. However, no study has tested these two hypotheses from temporal perspective as we know. In the present study, pictures depicted other people in painful or non-painful situations were used to indicate the valence of outcomes in a gambling task. The event-related potential results revealed an interaction between another person’s pain and outcome valence in multiple time stages. Specifically, the amplitudes of the N1 and P3 were enhanced in the win condition compared with the loss condition when the outcome was indicated by painful picture. This interactions between pain and reward support the salience hypothesis but not the competition hypothesis. The present results provide evidence from human subjects that support the salience hypothesis, which claims that observing other people’s pain can enhance the salience of reward.