Married women under extreme stress who reach
out and hold their husbands' hands feel immediate relief,
neuroscientists have found in what they say is the first
study of how human touch affects the neural response to
threatening situations.
The soothing effect of the touch could be seen in scans
of areas deep in the brain that are involved in registering
emotional and physical alarm.
The women received significantly more relief from their
husbands' touch than from a stranger's, and those in particularly
close marriages were most deeply comforted by their husbands'
hands, the study found.
The findings help explain one of the longest-standing
puzzles in social science: why married men and women are
healthier on average than their peers. Husbands and wives
who are close tend to limit each other's excesses like
drinking and smoking
but not enough to account for their better health compared
with singles, researchers say.
"This is very imaginative, cutting-edge science, linking
this complex response to stress to different areas of
the brain," said Dr. Ronald Glaser, director of the Institute
for Behavioral Medicine Research at Ohio State University,
who was not involved in the study.
In the study, to appear in the journal Psychological
Science this year, neuroscientists at the University of
Wisconsin and the University of Virginia used newspaper
advertisements to recruit 16 couples from the Madison,
Wis., region. The couples were all rated as very happily
married on an in-depth questionnaire asking about coping
styles, intimacy and mutual interests.
Lying in the jaws of an M.R.I. scanning machine and knowing
that they would periodically receive a mild electric shock
to an ankle, the women were noticeably apprehensive. Brain
images showed peaks of activation in regions involved
in anticipating pain, heightening physical arousal and
regulating negative emotions, among other systems.
But the moment that they felt their husbands' hands —
the men reached into the imaging machine — each woman's
activity level plunged in all the regions gearing up for
the threat. A stranger's hand also provided some comfort,
though less so.
"The effect of this simple gesture of social support
is that the brain and body don't have to work as hard,
they're less stressed in response to a threat," said Dr.
James A. Coan, a psychologist at the University of Virginia
and the study's lead author. His co-authors were Dr. Hillary
Schaefer and Dr. Richard J. Davidson of the University
of Wisconsin.
Relaxing in the face of a perceived threat is not always
a good idea. The brain's alarm system, which prompts the
release of stress hormones
that increase heart rate and move blood to the muscles,
prepares people to fight or run for their lives, researchers
say.
But this system often becomes overactive in situations
that are nagging but not life threatening like worries
over relationships, deadlines, money or homework. Easy
access to an affectionate touch in these moments — or
to a hug, a back rub or more — "is a very good thing,
is deeply soothing," Dr. Coan said.
The most profoundly comforting hand-holding was between
"supercouples," whose scores on the marriage questionnaire
reflected a extremely close relationship, the study found.
The brain region involved in anticipating pain was particularly
sensitive to this marital quality, suggesting that a touch
between close partners can blunt the sensation of physical
pain, which is related to the level of anticipation.
All of which also explains why the withdrawal or absence
of affectionate touch can be so upsetting. In research
published late last year, Dr. Glaser and his wife, Dr.
Janice Kiecolt-Glaser, reported that blisters lingered
longer during marital strife.
And rejection, the ultimate withdrawal of touch, registers
in the brain much like an ankle shock, said Dr. Lucy Brown,
a neuroscientist at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine.
Fear of the shocks activated a region in the brain "that
we saw activated in people looking at a beloved who had
recently rejected them," Dr. Brown wrote in an e-mail
message.
"Love has its risks," she added. "It can make us very
unhappy," too.
