Neural responses to instructed positive couple interaction: An fMRI study on compliment sharing

Abstract

Love is probably the most fascinating feeling that a person ever experiences. However, little is known about what is happening in the brains of a romantic couple - the central and most salient relationship during adult age - while they are particularly tender and exchanging loving words with one another. To gain insight into nearly natural couple interaction, we collected data from N = 84 individuals (after including N = 43 heterosexual romantic couples) simultaneously in two functional magnetic resonance imaging scanners, while they sent and received compliments, i.e. short messages about what they liked about each other and their relationship. Activation patterns during compliment sharing in the individuals revealed a broad pattern of activated brain areas known to be involved in empathy and reward processing. Notably, the ventral striatum, including parts of the putamen, was activated particularly when selecting messages for the partner. This indicates that the anticipation of a beloved person's positive reaction is rewarding already. Therefore, we provide initial evidence that the neural systems underlying giving a verbal treat to a romantic partner seem to involve dopaminergic basal ganglia. These results can have important implications for the neurobiological mechanisms protecting and stabilizing romantic relationships, which build a highly relevant aspect of human life and health.

Love Languages: the Science and Your Mental Health

“…A recent study that has not yet undergone peer-review (meaning third-party researchers have not yet evaluated whether they think the study was done appropriately), investigated how our brains are activated when we receive a compliment as well as when we are deciding on which compliment to give a romantic partner (Eckstein et al, 2022). Compared to receiving self-compliments (i.e.…”

Ewww–Investigating the neural basis of disgust in response to naturalistic and pictorial nauseating stimuli

“…Disgust is one of the six basic emotions ( 2 ) and is present across all cultures ( 3 ). More recent research has shifted to a more constructionist approach taking broadly distributed functional networks representing basic psychological operations as a basis for the production of a variety of emotional states ( 4 , 5 ).…”

“…To address this issue, there has been a call to increase ecological validity in affective neuroscience ( 27 ), which has already been implemented in several studies. For positive emotions, romantic partner interactions such as exchanging kisses or emotional and fond memories as well as compliments have been investigated using both EEG and fMRI ( 3 , 28 ). Regarding negative emotions, fMRI studies have incorporated real human interactions such as insults by the experimenter to invoke feelings of anger in the participants ( 29 , 30 ).…”