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Researchers studying people in relatively new romantic relationships found that viewing a partner's photograph activated brain areas associated with reward.
Greater pain relief was associated with greater activity in several reward-processing regions, including the nucleus accumbens.
This was particularly interesting because participants also completed a distracting mental task that reduced pain.
Both approaches helped, but their brain patterns weren't identical.
The romantic-partner effect therefore wasn't explained simply by “thinking about something else.”
Romantic attachment can interact with some surprisingly fundamental brain systems.
© PLOS ONE — Stanford University School of Medicine