Love affects your brain the same way as a powerful drug, says a study

All romantic relationships begin on a sweet note. The thought of our partner makes us smile and our heart flutters the moment we see them. Interesting, a study suggests that this euphoric, romantic feeling of being in a relationship affects the same part of the brain that drugs like cocaine and opium do. Shocked? Read on to know more about this research.

The researchers at Stanford University showed 15 students, eight females and seven males, the photographs of their partners while subjecting them to mild doses of pain on their palms.

Along with this, the participants’ brains were scanned by a functional magnetic resonance imaging machine and they were also asked to rate their pain at the end of each session.

The researchers concluded that feelings evoked by showing the pictures had the same effect as that of a painkiller. Not just this, the brain scans indicated that these feelings impacted the same part of the brain that gets triggered when a person consumes drugs like cocaine and morphine.

The research revealed that merely showing the photograph of their partner reduced intense pain of the participants by 12 per cent and moderate pain by 45 per cent. Whoa! Also, replacing the photo of the romantic partner with an attractive friend showed a mild analgesic effect.

The researchers tried to delve deeper into this subject by analysing how other activities like solving simple mathematical problems distracted the participants and helped in reducing the effect of pain.

The brain scans implied that distraction also helped in reducing the pain but it appeared to act on a different pathway than when shown the photographs.

Jarred Younger, one of the authors of the study, shared "Love-induced analgesia is much more associated with the reward centres. It appears to involve more primitive aspects of the brain, activating deep structures that may block pain at a spinal level: similar to how opioid analgesics work." He furthered added, "One of the key sites for love-induced analgesia is the nucleus accumbens, a key reward addiction centre for opioids, cocaine and other drugs of abuse. The region tells the brain that you really need to keep doing this."

(All images used here are representational)