Have you and your honey been together for decades and still feel that rush of pleasure when you see each other at the end of the day... or when you open your eyes in the morning? That's the ideal coupledom, but the common notion is that that there's a steady decline of romantic feelings after the first 10 years of marriage. So, how does one account for finding that in the couple who's been together for 20, 30, 40 years?
Scientists always thought it had to do with "the heart." Not something that an MRI could measure. But, Arthur Aron, social psychologist at Stony Brook University, in collaboration with Drs. Helen Fisher of Rutgers and Lucy Brown at Albert Einstein College of Medicine started studying this phenomenon by placing 1 of a couple into an MRI and offering a photo of her or his partner to study what the brain would do.
MRIs measure changes in oxygen levels of the blood that feeds the brain. Different areas of the brain light up, or show activity, in response to experiences that the researcher studies. Drs. Aron, Fisher, and Brown studied people who declared themselves to be madly in love and found a link between "romantic love and the so-called reward-seeking circuitry."
They found lots of flashes in the ventral tegmental area, rich in dopamine, the brain chemical that is responsible for pleasure. Now, the researchers thought, wouldn't it be interesting to see if couples who have been together for more than that magic 10-year precipitous decline time, could also show that brain activity in the ventral tegmental area...or in other areas.
Yes, they did find a few old couples who declared that they were still passionately in love, kissed on the street, held hands...and guess what? The ventral tegmental area lit up. And so did the area called the ventral pallidum, which has been connected with studies of prairie voles, little gerbil creatures, who bond for life. So, they're off and running. Looking for more of these passionate couples who've been together more than 10 years.
If you're one of these, look up this article, " Keeping Love Alive" written by Sam Schechner in the Wall Street Journal (Feb. 8). You can click on the video there to hear an interview with Dr.Brown and see photographs of the brain activity when people are in love. Very neat!
Have you and your honey been together for decades and still feel that rush of pleasure when you see each other at the end of the day... or when you open your eyes in the morning? That's the ideal coupledom, but the common notion is that that there's a steady decline of romantic feelings after the first 10 years of marriage. So, how does one account for finding that in the couple who's been together for 20, 30, 40 years?
Scientists always thought it had to do with "the heart." Not something that an MRI could measure. But, Arthur Aron, social psychologist at Stony Brook University, in collaboration with Drs. Helen Fisher of Rutgers and Lucy Brown at Albert Einstein College of Medicine started studying this phenomenon by placing 1 of a couple into an MRI and offering a photo of her or his partner to study what the brain would do.
MRIs measure changes in oxygen levels of the blood that feeds the brain. Different areas of the brain light up, or show activity, in response to experiences that the researcher studies. Drs. Aron, Fisher, and Brown studied people who declared themselves to be madly in love and found a link between "romantic love and the so-called reward-seeking circuitry."
They found lots of flashes in the ventral tegmental area, rich in dopamine, the brain chemical that is responsible for pleasure. Now, the researchers thought, wouldn't it be interesting to see if couples who have been together for more than that magic 10-year precipitous decline time, could also show that brain activity in the ventral tegmental area...or in other areas.
Yes, they did find a few old couples who declared that they were still passionately in love, kissed on the street, held hands...and guess what? The ventral tegmental area lit up. And so did the area called the ventral pallidum, which has been connected with studies of prairie voles, little gerbil creatures, who bond for life. So, they're off and running. Looking for more of these passionate couples who've been together more than 10 years.
If you're one of these, look up this article, " Keeping Love Alive" written by Sam Schechner in the Wall Street Journal (Feb. 8). You can click on the video there to hear an interview with Dr.Brown and see photographs of the brain activity when people are in love. Very neat!