Neural Representations of the Committed Romantic Partner in the Nucleus Accumbens
Open accessAbstract
Having an intimate romantic relationship is an important aspect of life. Dopamine-rich reward regions, including the nucleus accumbens (NAcc), have been identified as neural correlates for both emotional bonding with the partner and interest in unfamiliar attractive nonpartners. Here, we aimed to disentangle the overlapping functions of the NAcc using multivoxel pattern analysis, which can decode the cognitive processes encoded in particular neural activity. During functional MRI scanning, 46 romantically involved men performed the social-incentive-delay task, in which a successful response resulted in the presentation of a dynamic and positive facial expression from their partner and unfamiliar women. Multivoxel pattern analysis revealed that the spatial patterns of NAcc activity could successfully discriminate between romantic partners and unfamiliar women during the period in which participants anticipated the target presentation. We speculate that neural activity patterns within the NAcc represent the relationship partner, which might be a key neural mechanism for committed romantic relationships.
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Spatial activation patterns in the NAc can be discriminated between viewing one's partner and viewing an opposite-sex close friend.
“Furthermore, spatial activation patterns in the NAc can be discriminated between viewing one’s partner and viewing an opposite-sex close friend, suggesting that neural representations specific to the partner may exist, akin to the putative neural engrams encoding partner cues in the NAc, BLA, and hippocampus of rodents [150].”
From The Neurobiology of Love and Pair Bonding from Human and Animal Perspectives (2023) · cites this paper as [150]
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“The classification approach used in the present study allowed us to clarify unique neural representations in the NAcc related to the romantic partner, which could extend previous findings on the neural basis for emotional bonding with the partner, identified using conventional univariate fMRI (Acevedo et al., 2012; Fi…”
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- Authors
- Ueda, R., & Abe, N.
- Affiliations
- Kyoto University (JP)
- Corresponding author
- Ueda, Ryuhei
- Venue
- Psychological Science
- Publisher
- SAGE Publications
- Published
- 2021-11-25
- Volume
- 32
- Issue
- 12
- Pages
- 1884-1895
- ISSN
- 0956-7976 (ISSN-L)
- 1467-9280
- OpenAlex
- W3217236220
- Cited by
- 12
- References
- 58
- Citations by year
- 2026: 2 · 2025: 3 · 2024: 1 · 2023: 4 · 2022: 2
- FWCI
- 1.72
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- Locations
- Psychological Science (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Institutional Repositories DataBase (IRDB) (submittedVersion)
- Kyoto University Research Information Repository (Kyoto University) (submittedVersion)
- Funders
- Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JP17J01776, JP19H00628, JP19J00890)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Neuroendocrine regulation and behavior
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cellular and Molecular Neuroscience › Neurotransmitter Receptor Influence on Behavior
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Neural and Behavioral Psychology Studies
- Keywords
- nucleus accumbens, romantic relationships, social reward, facial expressions, multi-voxel pattern analysis, partner identification, affective bonds
- MeSH terms
- Female, Humans, Love, Magnetic Resonance Imaging, Male, Motivation, Nucleus Accumbens, Reward, Sexual Partners
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