He Really Feels Her Pain

The Social and Affective Neuroscience Lab at the University of Haifa conducted an experiment in which romantically linked heterosexual couple were recruited to study pain. It was the woman feeling pain, and the man was either holding her hand, together but not touching, or in another room. Meanwhile, their brains were being scanned. 

So the hypothesis was that touch would increase brain coupling between members of the couple and the extent of coupling would be associated with the degree of pain reduction. It would also be linked to the degree of empathy in the man. And this is, in fact, just what was found.

EEG recordings of alpha waves revealed an “interbrain coupling network” in the touch + pain scenario that exceeded the brain coupling seen in any of the other scenarios. The alpha-mu band of brain waves was primarily examined because it has known roles in pain perception, empathy, and interbrain synchronization; beta waves were examined as well, since interbrain coupling has been seen there, too, but none was found in this case.

In other words, holding hands reduced the women' pain more than other scenarios. One should hope that the women were compensated appropriately for their willingness to experience pain for this experiment. The study does not jump to conclusions about cause and effect, but offers some possibilities that should be studied further. Pain alleviation could be due to the touch itself, the appreciation of the partner's empathy, a feeling of general support, or other factors. Read about the experiment at Ars Technica. 

(Image credit: Flickr user ccbarr)


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