Having an MRI is an uncomfortable experience, especially going in head first. You inch into the machine until the smooth metal cylinder surrounds you. The machine hums ominously, and you would love to know what is going on around the rest of your exposed body, except you cannot sit up to find out.
You are then told whether or not you are about to receive an electric shock.
According to an article in The New York Times, 16 women from Madison recently went through a similar anxiety-filled exercise in the name of science. This was not a weird study in masochism'it was a labor of love.
In a report of the study soon to be released in the journal Psychological Science, scientists at UW-Madison participated in what is the first research of its kind into how human touch affects the brain's response to threatening situations.
Researchers placed married women into an MRI machine and monitored their brains' reaction throughout the experiment. Periodically, either a stranger or the woman's husband would reach in and hold their hand.
What they found, said Dr. Robert Davidson of UW-Madison, is that touch of a significant other can be a powerful calming force.
'What we observed,' Davidson said, 'is that there were changes in areas of the brain that are specifically involved in processing negative emotion ... that showed reductions when the wife was holding her partner's hand.'
Dr. Jim Coan, of the University of Virginia, was the lead author of the report. Coan said that the reduction in anxiety did not surprise him. He says that a brain has a lot to worry about when it perceives a threatening situation. Having another person nearby can signal the brain that help is at hand, thereby lessening the burden of worry. The effect is most pronounced if that person shares a close relationship with you.
'If you know for certain that the other person is someone who cares about you a great deal, you can be more certain that help will be forthcoming,' Coan said.
While the study confirmed this logic, the magnitude of the results was surprising.
'There appear to be some couples,' Coan said, 'who derive so much benefit from their spouses that they, unlike other couples, even show decreased activity in areas of the brain related to pain sensitivity and the regulation of stress hormones.'
Coan's lab nicknamed these spouses 'supercouples,' and he thinks that the kinds of couples who report high levels of intimacy and satisfaction in their marriage will be the ones enjoying the greatest health benefits from their relationships.
It has long been known that married couples boast overall better health than their single counterparts, and now scientists know one reason why.
'The basic message,' Dr. Davidson said, 'is that there are things we can do in our social relationships ... that can improve our levels of well-being, and these have actual biological effects. They actually change our brains in ways that can be beneficial.'
Coan and his colleagues are now exploring these handholding effects in other relationships. Research will soon show the effects of touch in gay and lesbian couples, between friends and within families.
In the meantime, it seems that science is helping prove that, at least for women having their ankles zapped, men are good for something after all.
