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. 2010 Oct 13;5(10):e13309.
doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0013309.

Viewing pictures of a romantic partner reduces experimental pain: involvement of neural reward systems

Jarred Younger  1 , Arthur Aron, Sara Parke, Neil Chatterjee, Sean Mackey
Affiliations

Viewing pictures of a romantic partner reduces experimental pain: involvement of neural reward systems

Jarred Younger et al. PLoS One. .

Abstract

The early stages of a new romantic relationship are characterized by intense feelings of euphoria, well-being, and preoccupation with the romantic partner. Neuroimaging research has linked those feelings to activation of reward systems in the human brain. The results of those studies may be relevant to pain management in humans, as basic animal research has shown that pharmacologic activation of reward systems can substantially reduce pain. Indeed, viewing pictures of a romantic partner was recently demonstrated to reduce experimental thermal pain. We hypothesized that pain relief evoked by viewing pictures of a romantic partner would be associated with neural activations in reward-processing centers. In this functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study, we examined fifteen individuals in the first nine months of a new, romantic relationship. Participants completed three tasks under periods of moderate and high thermal pain: 1) viewing pictures of their romantic partner, 2) viewing pictures of an equally attractive and familiar acquaintance, and 3) a word-association distraction task previously demonstrated to reduce pain. The partner and distraction tasks both significantly reduced self-reported pain, although only the partner task was associated with activation of reward systems. Greater analgesia while viewing pictures of a romantic partner was associated with increased activity in several reward-processing regions, including the caudate head, nucleus accumbens, lateral orbitofrontal cortex, amygdala, and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex--regions not associated with distraction-induced analgesia. The results suggest that the activation of neural reward systems via non-pharmacologic means can reduce the experience of pain.

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Conflict of interest statement

Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1. Neural responses associated with viewing pictures of a beloved during periods of acute experimental thermal pain.
Significant clusters are shown on an MNI-normalized average of all participants' high-resolution structural scans. Neurological (right on right) convention is used. (a) Sagittal view (x = −8) of conjunction analyses showing areas of BOLD increase (yellow) and decrease (blue) associated with viewing pictures of a romantic partner, over and above both viewing pictures of an attractive and familiar acquaintance, and a word-association distraction task. Activations (anterior to posterior) include the medial orbitofrontal cortex, pregenual anterior cingulate cortex, amygdala, and precuneus. Deactivations are seen in the supplementary motor area and ventral lateral nucleus of the thalamus. (b) Axial view (z = −3) of neural activation associated with pain relief during viewing of romantic partner pictures. Greater pain relief was associated with greater activity in the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, bilateral caudate head, and right superior temporal gyrus. (c) Coronal view (y = 34) of neural activity increase (yellow) and decrease (blue) associated with pain relief during viewing the romantic partner pictures. Pain relief is associated with greater BOLD activity in the bilateral lateral orbitofrontal cortices, and decreased BOLD activity in the left dorsal anterior cingulate cortex and right supplementary motor area. (d) Axial view (z = −16) of neural activity increase (yellow) and decrease (blue) associated with pain relief during viewing the romantic partner pictures. Pain relief is associated with greater BOLD activity in the bilateral lateral orbitofrontal cortices, and decreased activity in the right brainstem, approximately in the location of the substantia nigra. Also shown (in green) is an overlapping area of the right lateral orbitofrontal cortex that was also positively associated with analgesia in the distraction condition.
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