Scientists Try to Measure Love & its Benefits (article)

SCIENTISTS TRY TO MEASURE LOVE
By Jessica Pauline Ogilvie
Los Angeles Times
February 8, 2010

http://www.latimes.com/features/health/la-he-love8-2010feb08,0,5799369.story

Leave it to science to take all the fun out of something as cosmically pure
as love.

Theories about love’s purpose range from the biologically practical to the
biologically complicated. Anthropologists have said it helps ensure
reproduction of the species; attachment theorists maintain it’s a byproduct
of our relationship with our childhood caregivers. And now researchers are
exploring what happens physiologically as a romantic relationship
progresses.

The more we understand it, they say, the better our chances of making love
last and of harnessing its potential to improve our emotional and physical
well-being.

Whatever its reason, there can be little doubt — even from a scientific
standpoint — about the potent feelings that being in love elicits.

Arthur Aron, a social psychologist at Stony Brook University in New York,
has done brain scans on people newly in love and found that after that first
magical meeting or perfect first date, a complex system in the brain is
activated that is essentially “the same thing that happens when a person
takes cocaine.”

In one such study, published in 2005, Aron recruited 10 women and seven men
who had fallen in love within the last one to 17 months. After taking a
brief survey about the relationship (items included statements such as “I
melt when looking deeply into ____’s eyes”), participants were put in MRI
machines and shown pictures of their beloved, interspersed with pictures of
neutral acquaintances. When participants viewed images of their partners,
their brains’ ventral tegmental area, which houses the reward and motivation
systems, was flooded with the chemical dopamine.

“Dopamine is released when you’re doing something [highly] pleasurable,”
like having sex, doing drugs or eating chocolate, says Larry J. Young, a
psychiatry professor at the Yerkes National Primate Research Center at
Atlanta’s Emory University. Activation of this part of the brain is
primarily responsible for causing the sometimes bizarre behavior of new
couples, which is linked to motivation and achieving goals: excessive
energy, losing sleep, euphoric feelings and, occasionally, anxiety and
obsession when they’re separated from their objet d’amour.

According to Helen Fisher, a biological anthropologist and author of “Why
Him? Why Her?,” the smitten party is acting out of a motivation to “win
life’s greatest prize — a mating partner for life.”

Bonding

After the dopamine surge, research suggests that two key hormones —
oxytocin and vasopressin — enter the picture, encouraging couples to form
emotional bonds.

Oxytocin is released in humans during intimate moments such as prolonged eye
contact, hugging and sex. It’s also the hormone that causes mothers to bond
with their infants. And having been proved to be involved in long-term
bonding in prairie voles and, most recently, marmosets, researchers
speculate that it plays the same role in humans.

Vasopressin — also linked to bonding in prairie voles — has similarly been
linked to bonding in men. A 2008 study showed that a certain genetic
variation of a vasopressin receptor was correlated with marital infidelity
and fear of commitment.

All the chemicals and hormones released in new love help ensure that we mate
and stay together long enough to reproduce or form partnerships for the long
term. But once they’ve subsided, what happens?

Until recently, researchers assumed that most couples eventually settle into
what’s called companionate love: relationships that are more intimate, more
committed — and much less thrilling.

A recent study, however, proved this theory (and years of marriage sitcoms)
wrong. Bianca Acevedo, postdoctoral researcher at UC Santa Barbara, looked
at brain scans of couples claiming to be madly in love after 20 years of
marriage. She and her colleagues found that these fortunate folks had the
same neural activity observed in newly in love couples, only without the
anxiety or obsession.

Acevedo also discovered something that surprised even her: Based on
preliminary surveys, this kind of lasting love appears to be present in
approximately 30% of married couples in the U.S.

That doesn’t mean, though, that those of us who don’t fall squarely into
that group should throw in the towel. Researchers believe that we have a lot
to learn from these happy couples, if only we’re willing to do so.

To begin with, a great deal of research shows that doing novel, exciting
things together boosts marital happiness. “Take a class together that you
know nothing about,” suggests Aron, who has co-written several studies in
this area. “See a play, go to a new location, go to a horse race.” The
release of dopamine during these activities might remind couples of how it
felt to fall in love or even be happily misattributed to the experience of
being together.

The love upper

Also, says Acevedo, be thoughtful with your partner.

“We know that things like celebrating the positive is important for a
relationship’s well-being, as well as being supportive when [our partners]
need us,” she says. Couples that took part in Acevedo’s study also resolved
conflict smoothly and quickly, were affectionate and communicated openly
with their partners, and spent time bettering themselves as well as the
relationship.

“And sex!” she adds. “Sex is always good.”

These types of intimate, loving interactions between couples are all linked,
Acevedo says, to bonding hormones. “There’s a connection between being
engaged in the relationship — especially affection, disclosure and intimacy
— and oxytocin.” In fact, in one study, couples that had been administered
the hormone were better able to calmly mediate conflict and to empathize
with a partner.

Thomas Bradbury, a psychology professor at UCLA and co-director of the
university’s Relationship Institute, says that making beneficial
relationship changes isn’t as difficult as they may seem.

People — often men, he says — “think it’s harder than it really is.” But
the basic idea is simple: to listen and respond in a way that is supportive.
“When your partner says, ‘I had a funny dream last night,’ you say, ‘Tell me
about it,’ ” he says. Or, instead of suggesting that your partner quit his
or her job because of a difficult boss, he adds, empathize with their
struggle. Saying something as straightforward as, “That must be hard when
your boss criticizes you,” can make all the difference.

As cozy and warm as coupledom feels, its benefits extend even further.
Healthy, happy marriages have long been linked to lower mortality rates and
better immune functioning and, most recently, lower stress. In satisfied
couples, says Acevedo, oxytocin and vasopressin have been shown to activate
parts of the brain that are associated with calm, and even pain suppression.

“The way that we interpret those findings,” she says, “is that the quality
of our relationship bonds has implications for our health.”

Most research in the field of love has been done with married, heterosexual
couples. Acevedo suggests, however, that couples that have been living
together for a long time but are not married may have comparable
experiences. “If they’re living together and almost like marriages, I would
predict that they’re highly similar to the married individuals.”

Brain chemistry may not be foremost on most people’s minds when they meet
someone new or schedule a date night with their long-term partner. But
keeping the spark alive is more than just fun — it may be vital. And even
for those of us who aren’t in love right now, the knowledge may prove useful
in the future. After all, says Aron, “[just about] everyone falls in love.”