Can love heal all? Well, researchers at Stanford University have found that love does have the power to decrease pain. They conducted a series of tests on 15 college students who professed to being deeply in love. Subjects were placed in brain scanners that tracked their response to a heated probe placed in the palm of their hand. Brain scans were taken under three different scenarios: one, looking a a picture of an acquaintance, two, looking at a picture of their loved one, and three, looking at no picture at all. Based on data, researchers concluded that looking at a picture of a loved one reduced feelings of moderate pain by 40% and reduced feelings of severe pain by 10%. In addition, they concluded that love-induced analgesia was associated with the brain’s reward centers while relief from resulting distraction (ie. looking at a picture) occurred mostly along the cognitive pathways.
Full article: http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/10/13/love-and-pain-relief/?emc=eta1