Seeing the glass as half full: Taking a new look at cognition and aging 11-12

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From a cognitive perspective, aging is typically associated with decline. As we age, it may get harder to remember names and dates, and it may take us longer to come up with the right answer to a question.

But the news isn’t all bad when it comes to cognitive aging, according to a set of three articles in the July 2014 issue of Perspectives in Psychological Science.

Plumbing the depths of the available scientific literature, the authors of the three articles show how several factors — including motivation and crystallized knowledge — can play important roles in supporting and maintaining cognitive function in the decades past middle age.

Motivation Matters

Lab data offer evidence of age-related declines in cognitive function, but many older adults appear to function quite well in their everyday lives. Psychological scientist Thomas Hess of North Carolina State University sets forth a motivational framework of “selective engagement” to explain this apparent contradiction.

If the cognitive cost of engaging in difficult tasks increases as we age, older adults may be less motivated to expend limited cognitive resources on difficult tasks or on tasks that are not personally relevant to them. This selectivity, Hess argues, may allow older adults to improve performance on the tasks they do choose to engage in, thereby helping to account for inconsistencies between lab-based and real-world data.

Prior Knowledge Brings Both Costs and Benefits

Episodic memory – memory for the events of our day-to-day lives – seems to decline with age, while memory for general knowledge does not. Researchers Sharda Umanath and Elizabeth Marsh of Duke University review evidence suggesting that older adults use prior knowledge to fill in gaps caused by failures of episodic memory, in ways that can both hurt and help overall cognitive performance. While reliance on prior knowledge can make it difficult to inhibit past information when learning new information, it can also make older adults more resistant to learning new erroneous information.

According to Umanath and Marsh, future research should focus on better understanding this compensatory mechanism and whether it can be harnessed in developing cognitive interventions and tools.

Older Adults Aren’t Necessarily Besieged By Fraud

Popular writers and academics alike often argue that older adults, due to certain cognitive differences, are especially susceptible to consumer fraud. Psychological scientists Michael Ross, Igor Grossmann, and Emily Schryer of the University of Waterloo in Canada review the available data to examine whether incidences of consumer fraud are actually higher among older adults. While there isn’t much research that directly answers this question, the research that does exist suggests that older adults may be less frequent victims than other age groups.

Ross, Grossmann, and Schryer find no evidence that older adults are actually more vulnerable to fraud, and they argue that anti-fraud policies should be aimed at protecting consumers of all ages.

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How to defend against your own mind 20-10

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New project to use podcasts, video to illuminate bias, improve decision-making. 

When it comes to some of the most important decisions we make — how much to bid for a house, the right person to hire, or how to plan for the future — there is strong scientific evidence that our brains play tricks on us.




Luckily, Mahzarin Banaji has a solution: Understand how your mind works so that you can learn to outsmart it.

The Richard Clarke Cabot Professor of Social Ethics and chair of the Department of Psychology is launching a new project — dubbed Outsmarting Human Minds — aimed at using short videos and podcasts to expose hidden biases and explore ways to combat them.

“The behavioral sciences give us insights into what gets in the way of reaching our professional goals, of being true to our own deepest values,” Banaji said. “The science is not new, but its message is still one most people have difficulty grasping and understanding.”

Banaji and research fellow Olivia Kang, with funding from PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) and a grant from Harvard’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences, developed Outsmarting Human Minds as a way to deliver up-to-date thinking about hidden biases in an engaging way.

“Everyone wants to know what’s happening in their minds, and they want to know what they can do to make better decisions,” Kang said. “The science is out there; the challenge is getting it to the public in a way that captures their interest.”

The impetus for the project came in part from Banaji’s perspective as a senior adviser on faculty development to Edgerley Family Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences Michael D. Smith.

Speaking of that role, Banaji said, “I try to expose what the mind sciences have taught us about how we make decisions. The hope is that the faculty will put this information to use … in decisions about how to imagine the future of their disciplines.”

Banaji has taught on decision-making to any number of organizations, including corporations, nonprofits, and the military. Questions about how to confront hidden biases are common.



“I want to put the science in the hands of people — or rather, in the heads of people — and have them ask: How can I outsmart my own mind? How can I be the person I want to be?”

She emphasized that watching a video or listening to a podcast isn’t enough to address hidden bias.
“Learning brings awareness and understanding. It cannot itself put an end to the errors we make,” she said. “To achieve corrections that will matter to society, we must learn to behave differently.”

Said Kang: “We want to deliver this information to people in a way that doesn’t make them feel that they’re a bad person if they have these biases. The fact is, we all do. This is about acknowledging that hidden biases are a product of how we’re wired and the culture we live in. And then agreeing that we want to do something about it — that we can use this knowledge to improve the decisions we make in life and at work.”

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Benefits of crying: Why it's good to shed a few tears 10-13

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Crying is a natural response humans have to a range of emotions, including sadness, grief, joy, and

frustration. But does crying have any health benefits?

It is not unusual to cry, and both sexes cry more than people may assume. In the United States, women cry an average of 3.5 times per month and men cry an average of 1.9 times a month.
This article explores why people cry and what health benefits crying may have.

Crying is a natural response to emotions or irritants like dust in the eyes.

Humans produce three types of tears:

• Basal: The tear ducts constantly secrete basal tears, which are a protein-rich antibacterial liquid that help to keep the eyes moist every time a person blinks.
• Reflex: These are tears triggered by irritants such as wind, smoke, or onions. They are released to flush out these irritants and protect the eye.
• Emotional: Humans shed tears in response to a range of emotions. These tears contain a higher level of stress hormones than other types of tears.

When people talk about crying, they are usually referring to emotional tears.

Benefits of crying

People may try to suppress tears if they see them as a sign of weakness, but science suggests that doing so could mean missing out on a range of benefits. Researchers have found that crying:

1. Has a soothing effect

Self-soothing is when people:

• regulate their own emotions
• calm themselves
• reduce their own distress

A 2014 study found that crying may have a direct, self-soothing effect on people. The study explained how crying activates the parasympathetic nervous system (PNS), which helps people relax.

2. Gets support from others

As well as helping people self-soothe, crying can help people get support from others around them.
As this 2016 study explains, crying is primarily an attachment behavior, as it rallies support from the people around us. This is known as an interpersonal or social benefit.

3. Helps to relieve pain

Research has found that in addition to being self-soothing, shedding emotional tears releases oxytocin and endorphins.
These chemicals make people feel good and may also ease both physical and emotional pain. In this way, crying can help reduce pain and promote a sense of well-being.

4. Enhances mood

Crying may help lift people's spirits and make them feel better. As well as relieving pain, oxytocin and endorphins can help improve mood. This is why they are often known as "feel good" chemicals.

5. Releases toxins and relieves stress

When humans cry in response to stress, their tears contain a number of stress hormones and other chemicals.
Researchers believe that crying could reduce the levels of these chemicals in the body, which could, in turn, reduce stress. More research is needed into this area, however, to confirm this.

6. Aids sleep

A small study in 2015 found that crying can help babies sleep better. Whether crying has the same sleep-enhancing effect on adults is yet to be researched.
However, it follows that the calming, mood-enhancing, and pain-relieving effects of crying above may help a person fall asleep more easily.

7. Fights bacteria

Crying helps to kill bacteria and keep the eyes clean as tears contain a fluid called lysozyme.
A 2011 study found that lysozyme had such powerful antimicrobial properties that it could even help to reduce risks presented by bioterror agents, such as anthrax.

8. Improves vision

Basal tears, which are released every time a person blinks, help to keep the eyes moist and prevent mucous membranes from drying out.

As the National Eye Institute explains, the lubricating effect of basal tears helps people to see more clearly. When the membranes dry out, vision can become blurry.

When to see a doctor

Crying has a number of health benefits, but frequent crying may be a sign of depression.

Crying in response to emotions such as sadness, joy, or frustration is normal and has a number of health benefits.

However, sometimes frequent crying can be a sign of depression. People may be depressed if their crying:

• happens very frequently
• happens for no apparent reason
• starts to affect daily activities
• becomes uncontrollable

Other signs of depression include:

• having trouble concentrating, remembering things, or making decisions
• feeling fatigued or without energy
• feeling guilty, worthless, or helpless
• feeling pessimistic or hopeless
• having trouble sleeping or sleeping too much
• feeling irritable or restless
• not enjoying things that were once pleasurable
• overeating or undereating
• unexplained aches, pains, or cramps
• digestive problems that do not improve with treatment
• persistent anxiety
• suicidal thoughts or thoughts of self-harm

If a person is experiencing symptoms of depression, or someone they know is, then they should talk to a doctor.
Should a person feel suicidal, or know someone who is feeling that way, they should call:

• emergency services 

Takeaway

Crying is a normal human response to a whole range of emotions that has a number of health and social benefits, including pain relief and self-soothing effects.

However, if crying happens frequently, uncontrollably, or for no reason, it could be a sign of depression. If this is the case, it is a good idea to speak to a doctor. 

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How Data Mining Facebook Messages Can Reveal Substance Abusers 06-06

Substance abuse changes people’s patterns of behavior, and this is detectable in their social media messages, say researchers.

“A substance use disorder (SUD) is a condition in which recurrent use of substances such as alcohol, drugs and tobacco causes clinically and functionally significant impairment in an individual’s daily life.” So begin Warren Bickel from the Addition Recovery Research Center in Roanoke, Virginia, and a couple of pals, who study this condition.

Substance abuse is a serious concern. Around one in 10 Americans are sufferers. Which is why it costs the American economy more than $700 billion a year in lost productivity, crime, and health-care costs. So a better way to identify people suffering from the disorder, and those at risk of succumbing to it, would be hugely useful.

Bickel and co say they have developed just such a technique, which allows them to spot sufferers simply by looking at their social media messages such as Facebook posts. The technique even provides new insights into the way abuse of different substances influences people’s social media messages.

The new technique comes from the analysis of data collected between 2007 and 2012 as part of a project that ran on Facebook called myPersonality. Users who signed up were offered various psychometric tests and given feedback on their scores. Many also agreed to allow the data to be used for research purposes.

One of these tests asked over 13,000 users with an average age of 23 about the substances they used. In particular, it asked how often they used tobacco, alcohol, or other drugs, and assessed each participant’s level of use. The users were then divided into groups according to their level of substance abuse.

This data set is important because it acts as a kind of ground truth, recording the exact level of substance use for each person.

The team next gathered two other Facebook-related data sets. The first was 22 million status updates posted by more than 150,000 Facebook users. The other was even larger: the “like” data associated with 11 million Facebook users.

Finally, the team worked out how these data sets overlapped. They found almost 1,000 users who were in all the data sets, just over 1,000 who were in the substance abuse and status update data sets, and 3,500 who were in the substance abuse and likes data sets.

These users with overlapping data sets provide rich pickings for data miners. If people with substance use disorders have certain unique patterns of behavior, it may be possible to spot these in their Facebook status updates or in their patterns of likes.

So Bickel and co got to work first by text mining most of the Facebook status updates and then data mining most of the likes data set. Any patterns they found, they then tested by looking for people with similar patterns in the remaining data and seeing if they also had the same level of substance use.

The results make for interesting reading. The team says its technique was hugely successful. “Our best models achieved 86%  for predicting tobacco use, 81% for alcohol use and 84% for drug use, all of which significantly outperformed existing methods,” say Bickel and co.

The technique also identified a wide range of keywords that people with substance abuse disorder are more likely to use in social media posts. “Swear words such as ‘fuck’ and ‘shit,’ sexual words such as ‘horny’ and ‘sex,’ words related to biological process such as ‘blood’ and ‘pain’ are positively correlated with all three types of substance use disorder,” say Bickel and co, referring to tobacco, alcohol and drug use. “In addition, female references such as ‘girl’ and ‘woman,’ prepositions, space reference words such as ‘up’ and ‘down’ are positively correlated with alcohol use, while words related to anger such as ‘hate’ and ‘kill,’ words related to health such as ‘clinic’ and ‘pill’ are positively correlated with drug use.”

The data shows correlations both ways. “A preference for movies such as V for Vendetta and Boondock Saints is positively correlated with alcohol use, while having a hobby, liking cartoons and shows favored by kids or liking movies and brands favored by girls are negatively correlated with drug, alcohol and tobacco use respectively,” say the team.

There are also some surprising correlations. “For example, female references such as ‘girl’ and ‘woman’ are positively related to alcohol use while male references such as ‘man’ and ‘boy’ are negatively related to drug use,” says Bickel and co. This is probably because references to females are more likely to be made by males who are also more likely to use alcohol.

That’s interesting work that immediately suggests a way to identify people who are at risk of substance use disorder—simply look at their Facebook posts and likes. “We believe social media is a promising platform for both studying SUD-related human behaviors as well as engaging the public for substance abuse prevention and screening,” say Bickel and co.

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Brain hardwired to respond to others’ itching 03-12

Some behaviors — yawning and scratching, for example — are socially contagious, meaning if one person does it, others are likely to follow suit. Now, researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have found that socially contagious itching is hardwired in the brain.

Studying mice, the scientists have identified what occurs in the brain when a mouse feels itchy after seeing another mouse scratch. The discovery may help scientists understand the neural circuits that control socially contagious behaviors.

“Itching is highly contagious,” said principal investigator Zhou-Feng Chen, PhD, director of the Washington University Center for the Study of Itch. “Sometimes even mentioning itching will make someone scratch. Many people thought it was all in the mind, but our experiments show it is a hardwired behavior and is not a form of empathy.”

For this study, Chen’s team put a mouse in an enclosure with a computer screen. The researchers then played a video that showed another mouse scratching.

“Within a few seconds, the mouse in the enclosure would start scratching, too,” Chen said. “This was very surprising because mice are known for their poor vision. They use smell and touch to explore areas, so we didn’t know whether a mouse would notice a video. Not only did it see the video, it could tell that the mouse in the video was scratching.”

Next, the researchers identified a structure called the suprachiasmatic nucleus (SCN), a brain region that controls when animals fall asleep or wake up. The SCN was highly active after the mouse watched the video of the scratching mouse.

When the mouse saw other mice scratching — in the video and when placed near scratching littermates — the brain’s SCN would release a chemical substance called GRP (gastrin-releasing peptide). In 2007, Chen’s team identified GRP as a key transmitter of itch signals between the skin and the spinal cord.

“The mouse doesn’t see another mouse scratching and then think it might need to scratch, too,” Chen said. “Instead, its brain begins sending out itch signals using GRP as a messenger.”

Chen’s team also used various methods to block GRP or the receptor it binds to on neurons. Mice whose GRP or GRP receptor were blocked in the brains’ SCN region did not scratch when they saw others scratch. But they maintained the ability to scratch normally when exposed to itch-inducing substances.

Chen believes the contagious itch behavior the mice engaged in is something the animals can’t control.

“It’s an innate behavior and an instinct,” he said. “We’ve been able to show that a single chemical and a single receptor are all that’s necessary to mediate this particular behavior. The next time you scratch or yawn in response to someone else doing it, remember it’s really not a choice nor a psychological response; it’s hardwired into your brain.

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Imaging study confirms differences in ADHD brains 02-25

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The prestigious journal The Lancet has published a large study identifying differences in the brains of people diagnosed with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).

It found ADHD is associated with the delayed development of five brain regions, and should be considered a brain disorder. This is vindication for people experiencing ADHD whose diagnosis is sometimes called into question as an invented condition used to label normal children who are not meeting unrealistic expectations of “normal” behaviours.

Researchers from 23 centres in nine countries scanned the brains of people of aged four to 63 years, 1,713 with and 1,529 without ADHD. When they analysed all the data they found people with ADHD had slightly smaller brains overall, and in five of the seven specific regions there was a definite but very slight reduction in size.

They found these differences were more marked in children. When they analysed separately those who had and had not been treated with stimulant medication, they found no effect of medication. This suggests the differences are related to ADHD, and not an effect of treatment.

Not all cases of ADHD are the same

One important limitation of looking at brain images of people with ADHD relates to the diagnosis of ADHD, which is based on a person meeting a certain set of clinical criteria. Some of these are outcome-based and relate to a person’s ability to carry out tasks. For example, they may avoid tasks that require mental effort or leave tasks incomplete.

The result of this – fewer tasks completed – could have more than one possible cause. The lack of precision in the cause makes it difficult to align the diagnosis exactly with brain images.
Inefficiencies in the “thinking” function of the brain (called “executive functioning deficits”) have been identified in people with ADHD. These inefficiencies would make it harder for people with ADHD to carry out certain tasks, such as tasks that take a long time, are difficult and are not constantly rewarding or reinforcing. Therefore a person with ADHD might find motivation for homework extremely difficult to sustain, but electronic games could hold their attention for a far longer period.

The diagnostic criteria for ADHD ignore the emotional aspect. Using present diagnostic criteria, at least 40% of individuals with ADHD also meet diagnostic criteria for oppositional defiant disorder, a childhood behavioural problem characterised by a negative attitude, disobedience and hostility.
An even larger proportion probably have features of oppositional defiant disorder but do not reach the diagnostic threshold. This very substantial overlap requires explanation. The findings of the Lancet paper may indicate there is an emotional component that is intrinsic to ADHD.

It is possible some people with ADHD do not experience an adequate level of emotional satisfaction or sense of achievement in completing everyday tasks. This deficiency in the emotional reward could be an additional problem for some people with ADHD. These individuals would find tasks not only more difficult but also less satisfying, reducing their motivation to achieve. They might also be more moody and disagreeable.

Individuals with a combination of reduced emotional satisfaction (sometimes termed “reward deficiency”) and executive functioning deficits, would have two different mechanisms that would each serve to reduce their productivity.

Both of these mechanisms would contribute to their symptoms of ADHD, as they would result in fewer tasks completed. So because there is more than one possible underlying mechanism contributing to certain features of ADHD, it could be anticipated that a large cohort of individuals with ADHD would show a mixed picture, with a variety of different brain structures affected.
This would reflect differences in the balance of the deficits contributing to their symptoms. The study results are consistent with this concept – the scans show there is no single brain difference that can categorically diagnose ADHD, but they do involve brain centres related to emotion.

A valid pathology

The differences in the brains of people with ADHD confirm it is a valid diagnosis and the problems experienced by people with ADHD are genuine.

However, neuroscience has moved ahead of the clinical understanding of ADHD that is based on the definition in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders.

We need more sophisticated but clinically relevant models that recognise ADHD results from a combination of deficits that interact to produce varying symptoms for every person who experiences ADHD.

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Brain stimulation used like a scalpel to improve memory 01-22

Northwestern Medicine scientists showed for the first time that non-invasive brain stimulation can be used like a scalpel, rather than like a hammer, to cause a specific improvement in precise memory.
Precise memory, rather than general memory, is critical for knowing details such as the specific color, shape and location of a building you are looking for, rather than simply knowing the part of town it’s in. This type of memory is crucial for normal functioning, and it is often lost in people with serious memory disorders.

“We show that it is possible to target the portion of the brain responsible for this type of memory and to improve it,” said lead author Joel Voss, assistant professor of medical social sciences at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. “People with brain injuries have problems with precise memory as do individuals with dementia, and so our findings could be useful in developing new treatments for these conditions.”

By stimulating the brain network responsible for spatial memory with powerful electromagnets, scientists improved the precision of people’s memory for identifying locations. This benefit lasted a full 24 hours after receiving stimulation and corresponded to changes in brain activity.
“We improved people’s memory in a very specific and important way a full day after we stimulated their brains,” Voss said.

The paper was published Jan. 19 in Current Biology.

The research enhances scientific understanding of how memory can be improved using non-invasive stimulation. Most previous studies of non-invasive brain stimulation have found only very general and short-lived effects on thinking abilities, rather than highly specific and long-lasting effects on an ability such as precise memory.

The scientists used MRI to identify memory-related brain networks then stimulated them with non invasive electromagnetic stimulation. Detailed memory tests were used to show that this improved spatial precision memory, and EEG was used to show that these memory improvements corresponded to indicators of improved brain network function.

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Study: People four times more likely to order dessert when their server is overweight 12-30

Study: People four times more likely to order dessert when their server is overweight

Shyam's penny worth suggestion

Why not use the method in the image below to motivate yourself to have the desert. Look on for the restaurants where the server are fat and give yourselves a feeling of being lean.
...

Fatness or obesity is a relative term and a state of mind.

Some are fat physically

Some are fat Financially (Rich and filthy rich)

Some are fat Intellectually ( The professors)

Some are fat spiritually ( Seers and sages)

Some are fat in ignorance (people like me).

Some are fat with adulation (everyone sometime or other)

Now, if you think you still think you are fat,

PLEASE SHOW ME A PERSON WHO IS LEAN.

HAPPY NEW YEAR 2016...

AND YES KEEP GROWING

Please read the article...

"In a novel approach, we showed that diners can be influenced by their surroundings in general and furthermore by their social interactions in particular," Tim Döring and Brian Wansink wrote in their study. "This study suggests that it does not take profound interactions between individuals to alter their eating behavior."


The study was published online December 28 in the scientific journal Environment & Behavior.
A team of research assistants visited 60 restaurants, where they observed a total of 497 interactions between diners and servers. While visiting the restaurants, the research assistants recorded the estimated body characteristics of both the diners and the servers. They also recorded how much food and drink was ordered.

A statistical analysis of this data found that a server’s body mass index (BMI) — a simple measure of body fat based on height and weight — influenced how much their customers ordered and ate. The higher a server’s BMI, the more meals the diners ordered, regardless of their own body type.
Diners were four times more likely to order dessert and ordered 17.65 percent more alcoholic drinks when their server had a BMI that was over 25. A BMI greater than 25 is considered overweight by most health experts.

The relationship between the server’s BMI and their customers’ eating behavior remained significant even after accounting for ethnicity, gender, weight, height, and age.

"Diners may order and eat more food and beverages in the presence of a heavy person because a heavy person sets a social norm," Döring and Wansink said.

Some restaurants, such as the chain Hooters, have faced lawsuits for discriminating against overweight employees. But this research suggests forcing waiters and waitresses to be slim is bad for business. "If anything, heavy wait staff might increase sales," Döring and Wansink noted.

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Intelligence ‘networks’ discovered in brain for the first time 12-30

Intelligence ‘networks’ discovered in brain for the first time

Scientists from Imperial College London have identified for the first time two clusters of genes linked to human intelligence.

Called M1 and M3, these so-called gene networks appear to influence cognitive function – which includes memory, attention, processing speed and reasoning.

Crucially, the scientists have discovered that these two networks – which each contain hundreds of genes – are likely to be under the control of master regulator switches. The researchers are now keen to identify these switches and explore whether it might be feasible to manipulate them. The research is at a very early stage, but the scientists would ultimately like to investigate whether it is possible to use this knowledge of gene networks to boost cognitive function.

Dr Michael Johnson, lead author of the study from the Department of Medicine at Imperial College London, said: "We know that genetics plays a major role in intelligence but until now haven’t known which genes are relevant. This research highlights some of genes involved in human intelligence, and how they interact with each other.

What’s exciting about this is that the genes we have found are likely to share a common regulation, which means that potentially we can manipulate a whole set of genes whose activity is linked to human intelligence. Our research suggests that it might be possible to work with these genes to modify intelligence, but that is only a theoretical possibility at the moment – we have just taken a first step along that road."

In the study, published in the journal Nature Neuroscience, the international team of researchers looked at samples of human brain from patients who had undergone neurosurgery for epilepsy. The investigators analysed thousands of genes expressed in the human brain, and then combined these results with genetic information from healthy people who had undergone IQ tests and from people with neurological disorders such as autism spectrum disorder and intellectual disability.
They conducted various computational analyses and comparisons in order to identify the gene networks influencing healthy human cognitive abilities. Remarkably, they found that some of the same genes that influence human intelligence in healthy people were also the same genes that cause impaired cognitive ability and epilepsy when mutated.

Dr Johnson added: "Traits such intelligence are governed by large groups of genes working together – like a football team made up of players in different positions. We used computer analysis to identify the genes in the human brain that work together to influence our cognitive ability to make new memories or sensible decisions when faced with lots of complex information. We found that some of these genes overlap with those that cause severe childhood onset epilepsy or intellectual disability.

"This study shows how we can use large genomic datasets to uncover new pathways for human brain function in both health and disease. Eventually, we hope that this sort of analysis will provide new insights into better treatments for neurodevelopmental diseases such as epilepsy, and ameliorate or treat the cognitive impairments associated with these devastating diseases."

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Neuroimaging study shows how being in love changes the architecture of your brain 03-10

Neuroimaging study shows how being in love changes the architecture of your brain

A research team has used neuroimaging techniques to investigate how being in a romantic relationship produces alterations in the architecture of the brain. They found that being in love is associated with increased connectivity between regions of the brain associated with reward, motivation, emotion regulation, and social cognition.

“This study provides the first empirical evidence of love-related alterations in the underlying functional architecture of the brain,” wrote Hongwen Song and his colleagues, who published their findings February 13 in Frontiers in Neuroscience.

The researchers used resting state functional magnetic resonance imaging (rsfMRI) to examine differences in patterns of brain connectivity in 100 college students.

The students were divided into three groups: the “in-love” group, the “ended-love” group, and the “single” group.

The researchers found increased resting brain activity in the left dorsal anterior cingulate cortex in the in-love group, suggesting this area of the brain is closely related to the state of falling in love.

Brain activity in the bilateral caudate nucleus, on the other hand, was significantly decreased in the ended-love group. This brain structure is associated with detection of reward, expectation, representation of goals, and integration of sensory input.

The researchers also found increased connectivity between the left dorsal anterior cingulate cortex, caudate nucleus, nucleus accumbens, and insula — a brain network associated with reward, motivation, and emotion regulation — among the in-love group.

The increase in connectivity in these brain regions “may be the result of frequent efforts [of in-love participants]to monitor their own emotional state, as well as their lovers’ emotional state, monitoring conflicts while adjusting cognitive strategies in order to resolve conflicts so as to maintain their romantic relationship,” the researchers explained.

In addition, the in-love group showed increased connectivity between the temporoparietal junction, posterior cingulate, medial prefrontal cortex, precuneus, and inferior parietal lobe — a brain network associated with social cognition.

“These results shed light on the underlying neurophysiological mechanisms of romantic love by investigating intrinsic brain activity, and demonstrate the possibility of applying a resting state approach for investigating romantic love,” the researchers concluded.

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