Article 1

The early stages of a new, romantic relationship are associated with feelings of
euphoria, which likely arise from brain mechanisms responsible for sensations of
pleasure or reward. Imaging studies have shown that viewing pictures of a new,
romantic partner elicits brain activity in multiple reward processing centers in the brain.
Interestingly, these findings have now been replicated in a sample of Chinese
participants, suggesting that patterns of brain activation elicited by viewing pictures of a
romantic partner may be universal.
A research team headed by Sean Mackey, M.D., Ph.D., Chief of Stanford
University School of Medicine’s Pain Management Division, wondered whether viewing
pictures of a new, romantic partner could reduce experimentally induced pain. The
research team examined whether or not viewing pictures of a new, romantic partner
would be associated with specific patterns of brain activity that may mediate reward or
relief of pain.
To investigate, Dr. Mackey’s team recruited 15 students to participate in the
study during the first nine months of a new, romantic relationship. Each participant
reported being intensely in love, which was confirmed numerically by use of the
Passionate Love Scale. The participants included eight women and seven men, aged
19-21 years. Each participant underwent functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI)
of the brain, which measures change in blood flow due to changes in brain activity.
While in the brain scanner, each participant was asked to concentrate on each of the
following: a picture of their romantic partner, a picture of an acquaintance of the same
gender and similar attractiveness as the romantic partner, and a non-emotional word-
association task.
Each condition was presented while the participants were made to experience
no, moderate, or high levels of pain induced by exposure to varying levels of heat on the
non-dominant hand for 15 seconds. Each pairing of condition and pain level was
repeated six times in random order. Immediately after each pairing, participants used
their dominant hand to rate the level of pain they experienced on a scale of 0 to 10 (0 =
no pain at all and 10 = worst pain imaginable). After each pain rating, participants
counted backwards for 13 seconds to minimize sensory and emotional carryover
between trials.
In a study published in a recent issue of PLoS One, the research team reports
that viewing pictures of a new, romantic partner significantly reduced pain, but viewing
pictures of the acquaintance did not. fMRI results showed that several brain regions
implicated in reward and emotion increased in activity during viewing of the romantic
partners, including the frontal cortex, amygdala, and hypothalamus. In addition, fMRI
data showed that brain regions implicated in the processing of pain, such as the insula,
decreased in activity during viewing of the romantic partners. Interestingly, increased
activation of brain regions such as the caudate and nucleus accumbens was associated
with pain relief during viewing of the romantic partners but not during the word-
association task. The caudate and nucleus accumbens have been consistently
implicated in reward and include both classic brain reward pathways (namely, the
“mesolimbic” and “nigrostriatal” pathways).
Not all of the patterns of brain activation induced by viewing pictures of romantic
partners, however, were specific to reward. For example, some brain regions activated
by the “love task” described here are also associated with activation of brain areas
responsible for memory, attention, and sexual arousal. In addition, the researchers had
no way to determine how much attention a given participant was paying to the pictures
during the experiment. Surprisingly, there was no specific brain region that increased in
activity during viewing pictures of a romantic partner to a degree similar to the extent of
the pain relief experienced.
Overall, the results indicate that specific behavioral experiences can reduce pain
without drugs. “When patients are doing markedly better and I find out they are in a
new, passionate relationship, I may be less likely to think it’s the new medication I put
them on, said Dr. Mackey. “I realize that maybe it has nothing to do with me,” he said.
The authors suggest that the pain relief associated with activation of brain reward
systems described here may confer an evolutionary advantage in humans. Specifically,
the alleviation of pain during the pursuit of a rewarding stimulus (in this case, the
romantic partner) may facilitate attempts to attain specific goals even in spite of facing
potentially harmful stimuli.