It's a scientific fact: Lovesickness hurts

Mar 30, 2011, 10:08 GMT

New York - Science has now proven what virtually everyone has suffered at least once: lovesickness does in fact hurt.

Researchers have established that thinking about unrequited love stimulates the same areas of the brain as bodily pain, such as that caused by a burn, a study cited by the website Health.com said.

According to the test results, the brain does not differentiate bodily and emotional pain. Talk about lovesickness and painful separations is therefore 'more than just a metaphor,' said University of Michigan Professor Ethan Kross, who led the study.

The study, to be published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, is expected to shed light on how emotional traumas affect chronic aches.

Kross said further research is needed on whether treatment for physical troubles could improve emotional problems and vice versa.

Forty healthy men and women, who had been left by their partner in the previous six months, subjected themselves to the tests. In one test, such heat was applied to their arm as if 'a cup of hot coffee' had been poured on it.

In the other test they had to look at a photo of their former loved one. An MRI showed that two portions of the brain were stimulated that were previously only associated with bodily pain.

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