High-quality marriages help to calm nerves
Newswise — A University of Virginia neuroscientist
has found that women under stress who hold their
husbands' hands show signs of immediate relief,
which can clearly be seen on their brain scans.
"This is the
first study of the neurological reactions to human
touch in a threatening situation, and the first
study to measure how the brain facilitates the
health-enhancing properties of close social
relationships," says Dr. James A. Coan, author of
the study, which is published in the December 2006
issue of the journal Psychological Science.
Coan, an assistant professor in the U.Va.
Neuroscience Graduate Program and the Department of
Psychology, conducted a study involving several
couples who rated themselves as highly satisfied
with their marriages. Coan and colleagues designed a
functional MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) study in
which 16 married women were subjected to the threat
of a very mild electric shock while they by turns
held their husband's hand, the hand of a stranger
(male) or no hand at all. The MRI was able to show
how these women's brains responded to this
handholding while in a threatening situation.
The results showed a large decrease in the brain
response to threat as a function of spouse
handholding, and a limited decrease in this response
as a function of stranger handholding. Moreover,
spouse handholding effects varied as a function of
marital quality, with women in the very highest
quality marriages benefiting from a very powerful
decrease in threat-related brain activity, including
a strong decrease in the emotional (affective)
component of the brain’s pain processing circuits.
Coan is expanding his functional MRI studies in
collaboration with the U.Va. Department of
Radiology, to continue his exploration of the
neuroscience of emotion and close social
relationships.