Abstract
Using [11C]raclopride, a dopamine D2/D3 receptor antagonist, we undertook a positron emission tomography (PET) study to investigate the involvement of the dopaminergic neurotransmitter system when subjects viewed the pictures of partners to whom they were romantically attached. Ten subjects viewed pictures of their romantic partners and, as a control, of friends of the same sex for whom they had neutral feelings during the PET study. We administered [11C]raclopride to subjects using a timing for injecting the antagonist which had been determined in previous studies to be optimal for detecting increases in the amount of dopamine released by stimulation. The results demonstrated statistically significant activation of the dopaminergic system in two regions, the medial orbitofrontal cortex (mOFC) and medial prefrontal cortex, the former of which has been strongly implicated in a variety of rewarding experiences, including that of beauty and love. A positive correlation was obtained in mOFC between excitement levels and dopaminergic activation only in the love but not in the control condition.
Highlights
Love, especially during its passionate phase, is an all-encompassing experience which, despite its disorienting effects, is regarded as a highly pleasurable and rewarding one by most
Subjective Excitation and Physiological Response We undertook scanning experiments, using positron emission tomography (PET) to detect the activation of dopaminergic system, while 10 subjects, with an average score of 201.9 ± 33.7 on the Passionate Love Scale (PLS) (Hatfield and Sprecher, 1986; Hanari and Kawano, 2012), viewed pictures of their romantic partners and, as a control condition, pictures of friends of the same gender as their partner but for whom they had neutral feelings (Figure 1)
Our choice of the neurotransmitter to focus on, and brain areas to search for changes in, was facilitated by previous studies which have addressed the question of brain activity during attachment, pairbonding and romantic love
Summary
Especially during its passionate phase, is an all-encompassing experience which, despite its disorienting effects, is regarded as a highly pleasurable and rewarding one by most. The experience of love when viewing the face of a loved partner, whether of the opposite or the same sex, correlates with activity in a small number of distinct cortical and subcortical areas of the brain (Bartels and Zeki, 2000; Fisher et al, 2005; Zeki and Romaya, 2010), which is not to say that these areas act in isolation but only that they are especially prominently engaged during such experiences This restriction in the number of areas prominently engaged is surprising, given the all-embracing nature of romantic love. The obvious choice in this initial study was dopamine, partly because it has been found to be critical for pair-bonding in voles (rodents) (Young and Wang, 2004; Mcgraw and Young, 2010), even if it does not act in isolation but as part of a critical
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