What Brain Scans Teach Us About Intense Long-term Passionate Love

Published on February 3, 2011 by Adoree Durayappah-Harrison, MAPP in Thriving101

What's The Secret to Staying Madly in Love?

Is it even possible to feel madly in love with someone after five, ten, twenty years together?

Due to recent neurological research, we are a bit closer to answering these perplexing questions and demystifying the secrets behind achieving intense, lasting, romantic love.

A recent study published online in the journal Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, investigated, for the first time, which brain regions are associated with long-term romantic love.

Researchers compared the brain scans of long-term married individuals to the scans of individuals who have recently fallen in love. Surprisingly, the results revealed similar activity in specific brain regions for both long-term, intense romantic love and couples in early-stage romantic love. These particular brain regions could be the clue to why certain couples stay madly in love years, even decades, later

A group of researchers, led by Drs. Bianca Acevedo and Arthur Aron of the Department of Psychology at Stony Brook University, used functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) to scan the brains of happily married individuals (10 women and 7 men) reporting intense romantic love for their partner after an average of 21 years of marriage.

The Characteristics of Intense Romantic Love

Intense romantic love typifies symptoms (common to being newly in love) including:

• Craving for union
• Focused attention
• Increased energy with the partner
• Motivation to do things that make the partner happy
• Sexual attraction and thinking about the partner when apart

The objective of the study was to investigate how brain system activity in individuals in a long-term intense passionate love compared to the brain system activity of individuals newly in romantic love.

To My Future Love

My Love ... here's a poem which always makes me think of you.

"Love"

I love you,
Not only for what you are,
But for what I am
When I am with you.

I love you,
Not only for what
You have made of yourself,
But for what
You are making of me.

I love you
For the part of me
That you bring out;
I love you
For putting your hand
Into my heaped-up heart
And passing over
All the foolish, weak things
That you can't help
Dimly seeing there,
And for drawing out
Into the light
All the beautiful belongings
That no one else had looked
Quite far enough to find.

I love you because you
Are helping me to make
Of the lumber of my life
Not a tavern
But a temple;
Out of the works
Of my every day
Not a reproach
But a song.

I love you
Because you have done
More than any creed
Could have done
To make me good,
And more than any fate
To make me happy.

You have done it
Without a touch,
Without a word,
Without a sign.
You have done it
By being yourself.
Perhaps that is what
Being a friend means,
After all.

~ © Roy Croft (1907 - 1973)

Love Quote of the Day

The most important, most expanisive and far reaching love is self-love.

~ Journey

Affirmation of the Day

God has given me abundant energy, vitality, well-being and self-love.

Life is an incredible blessing!

Love Quote of the Day

"To love and be loved is the greatest happiness of existence."
- Sydney Smith

Love Quote of the Day"

"Love is the master key that opens the gates of happiness." Oliver Wendell Holmes

Love Quote of the Day

"Your task is not to seek for love,
But merely to seek and find
All the barriers within yourself
That you have built against it."

~ Rumi

My Affirmations for Love

This month I am starting something new in my life - an experiment in "Love". A few years back I read a book about creating the environment you want to have in the present, so you're both living in what you want, while at the same time creating an environment to invite more of it to come into your life. Lets' face it, if you're a negative person, love, or anything else for that matter, will not come into your life easily or magnificently. Been there done that.

From years of seeking and working at having wonderful things come in my life I know there's a better way. I know because I've done it in the past with: money (I have my dream job & it pays well); major academic issues (they were quickly resolved to my satisfaction); debt (I finally settled a huge debt w/the IRS to my satisfaction); and issues with my ex (he's now willing to sign on the dotted line letting go of money demands).

Soooooo... I'm now ready to use the same tools and thinking to invite love into my life. I'm affirming and inviting all kinds of love; from self, familial and filial love, to strong, positive, and passionate love so my future love, will enter my life.

This post will stay at the top through the end of the year so I can visit easily to: read, visualize, pray and meditate over these affirmations so all kinds of great love will enter my life and stay. At the end of the year I will write about the journey and the love I experienced along the way. In the meantime, I share my affirmations for love with everyone so that you too can experience the joy of loving and being loved... so be it!

• I am a beautiful! I am a beautiful creation of God's love.


• Everyone gets to see the beauty I possess within, and see the beauty I display outside of me.


• I lovingly accept myself and my life.


• I bask in God's unconditional love.


• I am a radiating center of divine love.
• My family feels the divine love within me and relates to me from their same place.
• I am lovingly preparing myself for the wonderful man of my dreams and God's choosing.
• I attract good, caring, fun & spiritual people into my life.
• This is a magical loved-filled month for me.

Walking in Love

Love Originally uploaded by amoraleda

"How blessed I am that I can walk beside you, lean upon you, and live within the warmth of your love." ~ Roy Lessin

Loving Thoughts Are Everywhere

You Warm My Heart Originally uploaded by Hvnly

I came across this photo over at flickr, and it made me think how all I wanted to do all day was to take 15 or 20 min to sit in a cafe do my affirmations, visualizations and prayers. Unfortunately, I was too busy to do them until I got on the LIRR on my way to make a shiva call.

It's been very busy at work and in my life lately. On a gray, misty cold November day like today I would have loved nothing more that to just sit and slowly sip my cap at my favorite italian cafe, looking for inspiration for love in the booths around me. Instead I found the inspiration during my shiva call. If you stop long enough to look around you, you will see love everywhere.

Sealed with a Kiss

"The greatest happiness of life is the conviction that we are loved, loved for ourselves, or rather loved in spite of ourselves" ~ Victor Hugo

Congratulations Chris! May you have many years of bliss together!

First Kiss

“The decision to kiss for the first time is the most crucial in any love story. It changes the relationship of two people much more strongly than even the final surrender; because this kiss already has within it that surrender.”
~ Emil Ludwig

To My Future Beloved

I love you,

Not only for what you are,
But for what I am
When I am with you.

I love you,
Not only for what
You have made of yourself,
But for what
You are making of me.
I love you
For the part of me
That you bring out;
I love you
For putting your hand
Into my heaped-up heart
And passing over
All the foolish, weak things
That you can't help
Dimly seeing there,
And for drawing out
Into the light
All the beautiful belongings
That no one else had looked
Quite far enough to find.

I love you
Because you have done
More than any creed
Could have done
To make me good
And more than any fate
Could have done
To make me happy.
You have done it
Without a touch,
Without a word,
Without a sign.
You have done it
By being yourself.
Perhaps that is what
Being a friend means,
After all.

~ Roy Croft