Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2015 Apr 9:9:191.
doi: 10.3389/fnhum.2015.00191. eCollection 2015.

Imaging the passionate stage of romantic love by dopamine dynamics

Kayo Takahashi  1 , Kei Mizuno  2 , Akihiro T Sasaki  1 , Yasuhiro Wada  1 , Masaaki Tanaka  3 , Akira Ishii  3 , Kanako Tajima  4 , Naohiro Tsuyuguchi  5 , Kyosuke Watanabe  4 , Semir Zeki  6 , Yasuyoshi Watanabe  7
Affiliations

Imaging the passionate stage of romantic love by dopamine dynamics

Kayo Takahashi et al. Front Hum Neurosci. .

Abstract

Using [(11)C]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 [(11)C]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.

Keywords: dopamine; medial prefrontal cortex; orbitofrontal cortex; positron emission tomography (PET); romantic love.

PubMed Disclaimer

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Paradigm for the PET experiments (A) showing stimulus display sequences (B). In order to allow for release of endogenous dopamine, the visual stimuli were presented 15 min before [11C]raclopride administration and lasted for 30 min. A PET scan was conducted for 60 min after the [11C]raclopride administration. Each partner's or friend's picture was presented for 15 s, followed by a baseline blank epoch for 15 s.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Decreased BPND by viewing loved partners' pictures. Statistical parametric maps of BPND in the medial orbitofrontal cortex (mOFC) and medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) in the love condition (Control minus Love) (A) and graphs to show the peak value of the binding potential within the cluster (BPND) in these regions of each subject (B). The mean and standard deviation is shown in (B) and the P values resulted from statistical analysis by two-tailed paired t-test.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Correlation between subjective excitement levels and BPND. Correlation between visual analog scale (VAS) values for excitation produced by viewing partners' (left) and friends' (right) pictures, and the BPND in the OFC during the love and control condition, respectively. Pearson's coefficient value and Pvalue are shown. Note the absence of a correlation in the right panel.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

Similar articles

See all similar articles

Cited by

See all "Cited by" articles

References

    1. Bartels A., Zeki S. (2000). The neural basis of romantic love. Neuroreport 11, 3829–3834. 10.1097/00001756-200011270-00046 - DOI - PubMed
    1. Bartels A., Zeki S. (2004). The neural correlates of maternal and romantic love. Neuroimage 21, 1155–1166. 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2003.11.003 - DOI - PubMed
    1. Fisher H., Aron A., Brown L. L. (2005). Romatic love: an fMRI study of a neural mechanism for mate choice. J. Comp. Neurol. 493, 58–62. 10.1002/cne.20772 - DOI - PubMed
    1. Gottfried J. A., O'doherty J., Dolan R. J. (2003). Encoding predictive reward value in human amygdala and orbitofrontal cortex. Science 301, 1104–1107. 10.1126/science.1087919 - DOI - PubMed
    1. Hanari T., Kawano K. (2012). The passionate love, positive, and negative feelings toward romantic interest: by use of Japanese Passionate Love Scale. J. School Cult. Infor. Stud. 12, 65–69 Available online at: http://ir.lib.sugiyama-u.ac.jp/dspace/handle/123456789/900

LinkOut - more resources