Why It Hurts to Be Away from Your Partner (SciAm)

[pokerfan]

Sumbitch, Huey Lewis was right!

February, 2009
By Erica Westly
Scientific American Mind

Everyone knows it’s no fun to be away from your significant other. Studies using anecdotal evidence have indicated that long-term separation from a romantic partner can lead to increased anxiety and depression as well as problems such as sleep disturbances. Now researchers are identifying the neurochemical mechanisms behind these behavioral and physiological effects.

In a study published last fall, researchers showed that male prairie voles that had been separated from their female partners for four days—a much shorter amount of separation time than researchers had previously found to affect the voles’ physiology—exhibited depressionlike behavior and had increased levels of corticosterone, the rodent equivalent of the human stress hormone cortisol. Males that had been separated from their male siblings did not display any of these symptoms, implying the response was tied specific­ally to mate separation, not just social isolation. When the animals received a drug that blocked cortico­sterone re­lease, they no longer exhibited depres­sionlike behavior following partner sep­aration, confirming that stress hor­mones were at the root of the response.

In many ways, separation appears to resemble drug withdrawal. Studies have shown that in monogamous animals, cohabiting and mating increase levels of oxytocin and vasopressin—hormones that foster emotional attachments—and activate brain areas associated with reward. As a result, when prairie voles are separated from their partners even for a short time, they experience with­drawal-like symptoms, says Larry Young, a behavioral neuroscientist at Emory University’s Yerkes National Primate Research Center and co-author of the study. “In the short term, I think creates an aversive state so that the animals want to seek out their partner to hold that bond together,” Young says.

http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=why-it-hurts-to-be-away">Read the rest

[BOSSHOG]

1. I can vouch for that

I was separated from my wife for long periods of time and it was the worst existence ever for me. On the flip side, I coped by working out and running to excess so I was quite healthy for awhile after.

[panader0]

2. I believe the medical term is "lacka nookie"

[Manifestor_of_Light]

3. Muskrat Love.........

Sigh......

[sakabatou]

4. It hurts even more when you havent' met your partner in real life

:( Long distance relationships can sometimes be a strain.