Harry
CibbuanoScience gives good news: long term love shows up in MRI
December 16th 2008 06:44
Romance finally gets a break from science, which has, historically, compared love to the feeling you get with chocolates, or downgraded as a simple reproductive act.
Zoologists are always happy to be first with the example of bonobo apes, which bugger each other silly, and use sexual behaviour as a form of power and domination.
Well, smug no more! Researchers found that married couples that are still in love actually have brain scans that supports their claims!
"People who have been madly in love for an average of 21 years had the same activation in that area of the brain associated with the 'honeymoon stage' - the ventral tegmental area."
Whew, all that dirty talk gets me hot - my ventral tegmental area needs to be fondled with the soft electrodes of your big, hard MRI machine.
Even better, the researchers found that couples in new relationships were active in a part of the brain that causes anxiety and obsession, whereas long term relationships seemed to be calm.
Yes, it's that calm that's the secret to a happy partnership; that, and some good dirty talk.
Sure, a lot of commenters were rather disdainful of this post, sneering at the irrelevance of it all, but it's still interesting. Brains! These researchers are obsessed with it - should we scan their brains as they gaze longingly at printouts of MRIs?
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