title: The power of love on the human brain.
abstract: Romantic love has been the source for some of the greatest achievements of mankind throughout the ages. The recent localization of romantic love within subcortico-cortical reward, motivation and emotion systems in the human brain has suggested that love is a goal-directed drive with predictable facilitation effects on cognitive behavior, rather than a pure emotion. Here we show that the subliminal exposure of a beloved's name (romantic prime) during a lexical decision task dramatically improves performance in women in love (Experiment 1), as the subliminal presentation of a passion's descriptive noun does (Experiment 2). The parallel between love and passion allows us to interpret these facilitation effects as corresponding to cognitive top-down processes within a motivation-enhanced neural network.
authors.affiliation: Geneva University Hospital, Geneva, Switzerland. francesco.bianchi-demicheli@hcuge.ch
authors.forename: Francesco
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Bianchi-Demicheli
authors.forename: Scott T
authors.initials: ST
authors.lastname: Grafton
authors.forename: Stephanie
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Ortigue
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D001921:Brain / Q000502:physiology*; D001931:Brain Mapping / Q000379:methods; D004644:Emotions / Q000502:physiology; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008149:Love; D008875:Middle Aged; D009415:Nerve Net / Q000502:physiology; D010775:Photic Stimulation / Q000379:methods; D011209:Power, Psychological; D011930:Reaction Time / Q000502:physiology