Love can ease pain, say brain researchers

Love hurts, at least according to many a romantic songwriter,but it may also help ease pain, US scientists suggest.

Brain scans suggest many of the areas normally involved in pain response are also activated by amorous thoughts. Stanford University researchers gave 15 students mild doses of pain, while checking if they were distracted by gazing at photos of their beloved.

The scientists who carried out the experiment used "functional magnetic resonance imaging" (fMRI) to measure activity in real-time in different parts of the brain.

It has been known for some time that strong feelings of love are linked to intense activity in several different brain regions.

They recruited a dozen students who were all in the first nine months of a relationship, defined as "the first phase of intense love".

Each was asked to bring in a picture of the object of their affection and photos of what they deemed an equally attractive acquaintance.

While their brains were scanned, they were shown these pictures, while a computer controlled heat pad placed in the palm of their hand was set up to cause them mild pain.

They found that viewing the picture of their beloved reduced perceptions of pain much more than looking at the image of the acquaintance.