The obsessions of the green-eyed monster: jealousy and the female brain

Abstract

The present brain-imaging study assessed neural correlates of romantic jealousy in women who had suffered real infidelity by their partner. We predicted to find activation across different brain structures associated with the processing of negative emotions and cognitive processes as well as obsessive-compulsive behavior. FMRI scans were administered while participants listened to descriptions of their own or another person’s experience of infidelity and jealousy, or to nonsense words. In the self-experienced (vs. other-experienced) jealousy condition, activity was greater in areas commonly associated with the interaction between different negative emotions (i.e., insula, anterior cingulate cortex, medial prefrontal cortex) such as fear, anger, sadness and cognitive processes like rumination. Enhanced activity was also found in the fronto-striato-thalamo-frontal circuit, a network implicated in habit formation and obsessive-compulsive disorder. Activation in the above networks was not enhanced when participants listened to other-experienced infidelity reports, as indicated by comparisons with the neutral condition. We discuss implications for the understanding and treatment of jealousy.