Love on the Brain: fMRI Imaging Shows Patterns of Brain Activation while Thinking about Love

Since the written record has begun, authors and poets have tried to find metaphors that attempt to describe the way it feels to love a child, friend, or partner. Most people have experienced the indescribable emotional effects of love, but what is happening in the brain that sums to the phenomenon of love? A group at Aalto University in Finland recently published a study where they aimed to visualize love in the brain.

The group used fMRI to obtain images of participants’ brains while they were told a short narrative about one of six different objects of love: a child, a romantic partner, a friend, a stranger, a pet, or nature. All of the participants were healthy adults, between the ages of 28 and 55, in a relationship, and having at least one child. Parental love caused the most intense brain activity, and uniquely activated areas of the brain associated with decision making and planning. From an evolutionary perspective this should be unsurprising, since caring for offspring is the core of successful reproduction. Romantic love was the second most activating, followed by love for a friend, and then love for a stranger. These social objects of love all activated similar areas of the brain but with varying intensity, leading the authors to conclude that social relationships are a continuum where activation becomes more intense with closer relationships. Researchers also found significant differences between participants who lived with pets and those who did not, about half belonging to each group. In the case of pet owners, the pattern of activation appeared more similar to social love types.

Love is a universal and complex experience. However it is not just interesting; it also provides critical insight towards understanding the complexity of human cognition. With a better understanding of brain activation, the authors hope to take a critical step in the treatment of people with disorders that manifest with loneliness and social isolation.

This study was led by Pärttyli Rinne with corresponding authors Mikko Sams and Linda Henriksson at Aalto University in Finland.

Managing Correspondent: Olivia Lavidor

Press Article: Love’s Location in Our Brain Depends on The Target of Our Affection (Science Alert)

Original Journal Article: Six types of loves differentially recruit reward and social cognition brain areas (Cerebral Cortex)

Image Credit: Pixabay