Scientists find evidence of true love

Scientists discovered true love in couples they studied. Scientists showed via brain scans that a small number of couples have as much passion after 20 years as they had when they fell in love for the first time.

Previous studies have found that after the first stages of love, there are ups and downs in their mood swings and obsessions, what the psychologists call “limerence”. This limerence begins to fade after 15 months and after 10 years it is gone. You may have heard the term "seven-year itch", which refers to this limerence. But this new study has found out that in some of the long-term couples, the limerence is still as fresh as when they newly met first because of their “intensive companionship and sexual liveliness” according to the scientists from Stony Brook University. The scientists wanted to prove this theory via experiments through brain scans. The team scanned the brains of couples who had been together at least for 20 years and compared them with those of new lovers. The team found that about one in 10 couples exhibits similar chemical reactions in the brain when they were shown photographs of their loved ones in the early stages of relationships. The researchers named such couples as “swans” because of exhibiting similar mental “love maps” like the swans, voles and grey foxes. When the swans were shown pictures of their loved ones, their MRI brain scans registered a burst of pleasure-producing dopamine commonly found in new couples as they exhibit the first flush of lust. Arthur Aron, a psychologist at Stony Brook and part of this study is glad they are able to prove true love via science. Aron told Times Online:

But this is what the brain scans tell us and people can’t fake that (true love).

Billy and Michelle Jordon are one such “swans" -- they met 18 years ago and are still living together and make their friends envious. They say it comes natural to them. Another couple, Lisa and David Baber from Bristol, Connecticut, also exhibit similar relationship and they still feel the similar reactions they had 17 years ago. Lisa told Times Online:

He was crazy and so exciting, he whisked me off my feet...That excitement is very much alive. We make sure our lives are always changing.