HOME HELP FEEDBACK SUBSCRIPTIONS ARCHIVE SEARCH TABLE OF CONTENTS		QUICK SEARCH:   [advanced] Author: Keyword(s): Year:  Vol:  Page:

J Neurophysiol 94: 327-337, 2005. First published May 31, 2005; doi:10.1152/jn.00838.2004
0022-3077/05 $8.00

This Article Free upon publication Full Text Full Text (PDF) All Versions of this Article: 94/1/327    most recent 00838.2004v1 Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Citation Map Services Email this article to a friend Similar articles in this journal Similar articles in ISI Web of Science Similar articles in PubMed Alert me to new issues of the journal Download to citation manager Citing Articles Citing Articles via HighWire Citing Articles via ISI Web of Science (51) Citing Articles via Google Scholar Google Scholar Articles by Aron, A. Articles by Brown, L. L. Search for Related Content PubMed PubMed Citation Articles by Aron, A. Articles by Brown, L. L.

Reward, Motivation, and Emotion Systems Associated With Early-Stage Intense Romantic Love

¹Departments of Psychology and ²Radiology, State University of New York at Stony Brook, Stony Brook, New York; ³Department of Anthropology, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, New Jersey; and ⁴Departments of Neurology and Neuroscience, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Bronx, New York

Submitted 16 August 2004; accepted in final form 20 March 2005

Early-stage romantic love can induce euphoria, is a cross-cultural phenomenon, and is possibly a developed form of a mammalian drive to pursue preferred mates. It has an important influence on social behaviors that have reproductive and genetic consequences. To determine which reward and motivation systems may be involved, we used functional magnetic resonance imaging and studied 10 women and 7 men who were intensely "in love" from 1 to 17 mo. Participants alternately viewed a photograph of their beloved and a photograph of a familiar individual, interspersed with a distraction-attention task. Group activation specific to the beloved under the two control conditions occurred in dopamine-rich areas associated with mammalian reward and motivation, namely the right ventral tegmental area and the right postero-dorsal body and medial caudate nucleus. Activation in the left ventral tegmental area was correlated with facial attractiveness scores. Activation in the right anteromedial caudate was correlated with questionnaire scores that quantified intensity of romantic passion. In the left insula-putamen-globus pallidus, activation correlated with trait affect intensity. The results suggest that romantic love uses subcortical reward and motivation systems to focus on a specific individual, that limbic cortical regions process individual emotion factors, and that there is localization heterogeneity for reward functions in the human brain.

This article has been cited by other articles:

				F. Krueger, K. McCabe, J. Moll, N. Kriegeskorte, R. Zahn, M. Strenziok, A. Heinecke, and J. Grafman Neural correlates of trust PNAS, December 11, 2007; 104(50): 20084 - 20089. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

				D. Sabatinelli, M. M. Bradley, P. J. Lang, V. D. Costa, and F. Versace Pleasure Rather Than Salience Activates Human Nucleus Accumbens and Medial Prefrontal Cortex J Neurophysiol, September 1, 2007; 98(3): 1374 - 1379. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

				S. Ortigue, F. Bianchi-Demicheli, A. F. d. C. Hamilton, and S. T. Grafton The Neural Basis of Love as a Subliminal Prime: An Event-related Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging Study. J. Cogn. Neurosci., July 1, 2007; 19(7): 1218 - 1230. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

				J. Moll, F. Krueger, R. Zahn, M. Pardini, R. de Oliveira-Souza, and J. Grafman Human fronto-mesolimbic networks guide decisions about charitable donation PNAS, October 17, 2006; 103(42): 15623 - 15628. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]