Nothing Kills Pain Like The Love Drug

Thoughts of a beloved activate the reward centre of the brain.

Intense, passionate feelings of love can provide amazing pain relief, similar to painkillers or illicit drugs like cocaine, finds a new study. “When people are in this passionate, all-consuming phase of love, there are significant alterations in their mood that impact their experience of pain,” says Sean Mackey, senior author of the study from Stanford University. “When thinking about your beloved, there is intense activation in the reward area of the brain—the same area that lights up when you take cocaine… when you win a lot of money,” says Arthur Aron, one of the study’s authors.

Researchers recruited 15 undergraduates (eight women and seven men) for the study. They had brought along photos of their beloved and an equally attractive acquaintance. The two photos were successively flashed before the subjects while their palms were heated with a thermal stimulator to cause mild pain. At the same time, their brains were scanned in a functional MRI machine. The subjects were also tested for pain relief while being distracted with word-association tasks.

Results show that both love and distraction reduce pain equally, and much better than the attractive acquaintance. But the two methods of pain reduction used very different brain pathways.