William Atkins
Friday, 12 December 2008 00:20
Science -
Biology
Page 1 of 2
U.S. research finds that some married couples were still romantically in love 21 years after first getting married. They discover the honeymoon never ends for some couples!
Researchers from the United States, lead by Bianca Acevedo from the College of Medicine at Albert Einstein College (New York City), began their study to decide if romantic love is long lasting--at least, longer than fifteen months or so.
They used the brain activity of human subjects who had been married various lengths of time, from only a few months to many years.
One person viewed pictures of their partner while being studied with functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scans. Scans of fMRI analyze brain activity by mapping changes in oxygen levels that correspond to activities within nerve cells.
Some of the couples (only a small percentage), who were married for a long time, claimed to still be in love (still excited after all those years), just like when they first dated.
The Acevedo-lead study found that couples who had intense love for each other—for an average of 21 years of marriage—had similar brain activity with couples who had been married only for a few months.
The part of the brain called the ventral tegmental area (VTA) has been shown earlier in other studies to show increased activity when people are in early stages of being in love.
The researchers concentrated on this part of the brain during their fMRI scans, but also involved other regions, too.
Page two continues with the results.
