Abstract
Romantic and maternal love are highly rewarding experiences. Both
are linked to the perpetuation of the species and therefore have
a closely linked biological function of crucial evolutionary importance.
Yet almost nothing is known about their neural correlates in the
human. We therefore used fMRI to measure brain activity in mothers
while they viewed pictures of their own and of acquainted children,
and of their best friend and of acquainted adults as additional controls.
The activity specific to maternal attachment was compared to that
associated to romantic love described in our earlier study and to
the distribution of attachment-mediating neurohormones established
by other studies. Both types of attachment activated regions specific
to each, as well as overlapping regions in the brain's reward system
that coincide with areas rich in oxytocin and vasopressin receptors.
Both deactivated a common set of regions associated with negative
emotions, social judgment and 'mentalizing', that is, the assessment
of other people's intentions and emotions. We conclude that human
attachment employs a push-pull mechanism that overcomes social distance
by deactivating networks used for critical social assessment and
negative emotions, while it bonds individuals through the involvement
of the reward circuitry, explaining the power of love to motivate
and exhilarate.
- adolescent,adult,brain,brain
- aged,nervous
- attachment,preschool,receptors,reward,social
- behavior,maternal
- behavior:
- chemistry,brain
- chemistry:
- interpretation,face,female,humans,image
- mapping,brain:
- perception,statistical
- phenomena,neurotransmitter,neurotransmitter:
- physiological
- physiology,brain
- physiology,child,computer-assisted,data
- physiology,middle
- physiology,object
- processing,infant,love,maternal
- system
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