The Neural Basis of Love as a Subliminal Prime: An Event-related Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging Study

Abstract

Abstract& Throughout the ages, love has been defined as a motivated and goal-directed mechanism with explicit and implicit mechanisms. Recent evidence demonstrated that the explicit representation of love recruits subcorticocortical pathways mediating reward, emotion, and motivation systems. However, the neural basis of the implicit (unconscious) representation of love remains unknown. To assess this question, we combined eventrelated functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) with a behavioral subliminal priming paradigm embedded in a lexical decision task. In this task, the name of either a beloved partner, a neutral friend, or a passionate hobby was subliminally presented before a target stimulus (word, nonword, or blank), and participants were required to decide if the target was a word or not. Behavioral results showed that subliminal presentation of either a beloved's name (love prime) or a passion descriptor (passion prime) enhanced reaction times in a similar fashion. Subliminal presentation of a friend's name (friend prime) did not show any beneficial effects. Functional results showed that subliminal priming with a beloved's name (as opposed to either a friend's name or a passion descriptor) specifically recruited brain areas involved in abstract representations of others and the self, in addition to motivation circuits shared with other sources of passion. More precisely, love primes recruited the fusiform and angular gyri. Our findings suggest that love, as a subliminal prime, involves a specific neural network that surpasses a dopaminergic-motivation system. &

Correlation between insula activation and self-reported quality of orgasm in women

“…This result reinforced the assumed role of the left angular gyrus in love intensity . Interestingly, the temporo-parietal junction, and notably the angular gyrus, is an associative brain area considered to be pivotal in carrying out cross-modal information (Calvert et al, 2000;Bremmer et al, 2001), episodic memory retrieval, conceptual knowledge and metaphors (Ashby and O'Brien, 2005;von Bubnoff, 2005, Jackson et al, 2006Ortigue et al, 2007;Saxe and Kanwisher, 2003). Thus, the present correlation between this brain region and love intensity reinforces that such higher order mechanisms can take place in the abstract concept of love (e.g., Aron et al, 2005;Bianchi-Demicheli et al, 2006;Brehm et al, 2002;Buss, 2003;Fisher, 2004;Sternberg and Barnes, 1988).…”

“…During the scanner session, participants were instructed to perform one of our standard tasks known to assess the unconscious mental representation of their partner Ortigue et al, 2007). During this visual lexical decision task, which is embedded in a subliminal priming paradigm, participants were asked to indicate as rapidly and as accurately as possible whether or not an English word was presented on that trial.…”

“…Here we used an event-related fMRI design to assess the brain activity elicited when 29 healthy female volunteers who were in a stable relationship with a partner were unconsciously exposed to a behavioral task known to identify a partner-related neural network Ortigue et al, 2007), and we correlated it with individual scores obtained from a standard female sexual functioning questionnaire (Rosen et al, 2000). Based on the somatic marker hypothesis, which suggests that an emotional experience can guide future behaviors (Damasio, 1994(Damasio, , 1996, we hypothesize that the neural mechanisms taking place in the early stages of an orgasm experience may also influence future sexualrelated experiences, such as orgasm quality ratings (as assessed by self-report questionnaires about satisfaction, frequency and ease).…”

“…In this framework of a partner-related network, we thus assessed the potential overlapping substrates for subliminal partner-related neural responses, women's representation of orgasm quality ratings (as assessed by self-report questionnaires about satisfaction, frequency and ease), intensity of love and satisfaction of emotional closeness with their partner. Even if it is of course clear that being in a stable relationship or being in love is not a prerequisite to reach orgasm, a growing body of evidence suggests that a partner-related cerebral network may involve brain areas that have been also reported to be recruited in the orgasm-related cerebral network (Aron et al, 2005;Bartels and Zeki, 2000;Bianchi-Demicheli and Ortigue, 2007;Komisaruk et al, 2004;Ortigue et al, 2007). Thus, we hypothesize that a significant relationship may exist between the cerebral correlates of self-report partnered orgasm quality ratings, and at least one of the brain regions located within the putative partner-related neural network.…”

Current Evidence of the Monoaminergic Regulation of Romantic Love and Relationship

“…Under audio-stimulation by hearing partner's name, activation is seen at bilateral caudate nucleus, ventral tegmentum area, insula, fusiform and hippocampal formation, right angular gyrus, and left inferior temporal gyrus, dorsal middle frontal gyrus, occipital lobe, and cerebellum [15].…”