High-Quality Marriages Help To Calm Nerves

December 29, 2006

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. 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.

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