School of Criminal Justice, China University of Political Science and Law, Beijing, 102249, China.
Faculty of Psychology, Southwest University, Chongqing, 400715, China.
Sci Rep. 2018 Feb 12;8(1):2835. doi: 10.1038/s41598-018-21079-5.
Romantic love is a cross-culturally universal phenomenon that serves as a commitment device for motivating pair bonding in human beings. Women and men may experience different feelings when viewing the same warm, romantic scenes. To determine which brain systems may be involved in romance perception and examine possible sex differences, we scanned 16 women and 16 men who were intensely in love, using functional MRI. Participants were required to rate the romance level of 60 pictures showing romantic events that may frequently occur during romantic relationship formation. The results showed that greater brain activation was found for men in the insula, PCC (posterior cingulate cortex), and prefrontal gyrus compared with women, primarily under the High-romance condition. In addition, enhanced functional connectivity between the brain regions involved in the High-romance condition in contrast to the Low-romance condition was only found for men. These data suggest that men and women differ in the processing of romantic information and that it may be more effortful for men to perceive and evaluate romance degree.
浪漫的爱情是一种普遍存在于不同文化中的现象，它是人类促进伴侣关系的一种承诺机制。当观看同样温暖、浪漫的场景时，女性和男性可能会有不同的感受。为了确定哪些大脑系统可能参与浪漫感知，并研究可能存在的性别差异，我们使用 fMRI 技术对 16 名热恋中的女性和 16 名男性进行了扫描。参与者需要根据 60 张展示浪漫事件的图片来评估浪漫程度，这些事件可能经常发生在浪漫关系形成过程中。结果表明，与女性相比，男性在岛叶、后扣带回皮层（PCC）和前额叶回的激活程度更高，主要是在高浪漫条件下。此外，仅在男性中发现，与低浪漫条件相比，高浪漫条件下涉及的大脑区域之间的功能连接增强。这些数据表明，男性和女性在处理浪漫信息方面存在差异，男性可能需要更多的努力来感知和评估浪漫程度。
