Radiology Knows How Deep Your Love Is

In this new research, radiologists have found evidence that romance is a biological urge distinct from sexual arousal and closer to drives like hunger, thirst, or drug craving. As a relationship deepens, the neural activity associated with romantic love alters slightly, and stimulates areas deep in the brain that are involved in long-term attachment.

Radiology Career Looks Into Love

With this research, radiology experts are mapping the whole cycle of love into a biological framework. In the study, Dr. Fisher, Dr. Lucy Brown of Albert Einstein College of Medicine in the Bronx and Dr. Arthur Aron, a psychologist at the State University of New York at Stony Brook, led a team that analyzed about 2,500 radiology images from 17 college students who were in the first weeks or months of new love.

The students were asked to look at a picture of their beloved while an M.R.I. machine scanned their brains. The researchers then compared the images with others taken while the students looked at picture of an acquaintance.

Radiology and MRI Jobs

M.R.I. technology (short for Magnetic Resonance Imaging) detects increases or decreases of blood flow in the brain, which reflect changes in neural activity.

MRI's are part of the artillery of radiology methods taught in radiology degree programs and used in radiology jobs. Radiology is a health field that is fast making itself known in other research careers, like anthropology, sociology, and archaeology, in addition to neurology.