发信人: downspring (田野里的旋风)

这篇我隔一年半载就贴一次，送给依然相信真爱的人。

科学家们已经发现真爱。脑部扫描显示有少部分情侣在二十年后对伴侣的激情相当于大多数人在开始热恋时产生的激情。

这些发现推翻了爱情和性欲的最高峰时期在约会起初，并会随着时间的推移走下坡路的传统观念。

纽约州立大学石溪分校一小组把在一起20年的情侣的脑部扫描和新情人的做比较，他们发现有十分之一的长久情侣看到他们爱人的照片后显示出和新情侣相似的化学反应。

以前的研究结果显示出刚陷入爱情的人们的心理特性如情绪会象坐过山车似的波动，痴迷，心理学家称这种现象为迷恋。它会在十五个月内减弱，十年后这些化学反应会消失。

对一些长久情侣脑部扫描的结果却显示出迷恋成熟后的特征，让他们还能享受到新情侣称之为的“强烈的相伴和性的活力“。

研究人员给这些情侣取名为“天鹅”，因为他们和一些能相伴一生的动物的心理的“爱的地图”相似，比如天鹅, 田鼠, 灰狐狸.

磁共振成像脑部扫描显示天鹅看到伴侣的照片会爆发出产生快感的多巴胺，就象情侣们第一次感受到情欲一样。

“这些研究结果推翻了关于浪漫的传统观念 － 在十年内它会极速减弱 － 但是我们相信它是真的，” 石溪分校的心理学家阿瑟.阿隆说。

之前的研究列出情侣关系的“断裂点”分别为12－15月，三年和臭名昭著的“七年之痒“。

阿隆说一开始他面试的一些人提到二十一年后他们还很相爱，他以为他们在自欺：“但这是脑部扫描的结果。人们装不出来的。”

比利和米歇尔.佐敦是阿隆的一对天鹅, 十八年后的今天仍然让他们的朋友们羡慕。这对情侣住在加州纽波特海滩，总牵着手。“这是自然而然的事，”59岁的米歇尔说。

来自布里斯托尔的40岁的丽莎巴伯和她46岁的丈夫大卫说在一起十七年后他们还是能感受到刚恋爱时的颤抖。

“他是那么的疯狂让人兴奋，我从头到脚爱上他，” 丽莎说。“那种兴奋一直都在。我们一直努力让生活有变化。”

其他能保持激情的情侣包括托尼和切丽布莱尔，迈克尔和夏奇拉坚，迈克尔.霍华德，前保守党领袖和他的妻子桑德拉在一起三十多年。

阿隆说他和他的妻子伊莱恩, 都是64，有着坚固的关系但有一点妒忌天鹅们。“他们的关系也强烈加上性生活活跃，却没有初恋的一些缺陷，”他上星期说。

原文：

SCIENTISTS have discovered true love. Brain scans have proved that a small number of couples can respond with as much passion after 20 years as most people exhibit only in the first flush of love.

The findings overturn the conventional view that love and sexual desire peak at the start of a relationship and then decline as the years pass.

A team from Stony Brook University in New York scanned the brains of couples who had been together for 20 years and compared them with those of new lovers. They found that about one in 10 of the mature couples exhibited the same chemical reactions when shown photographs of their loved ones as people commonly do in the early stages of a relationship.

Previous research suggested that the first stages of romantic love, a rollercoaster ride of mood swings and obsessions that psychologists call limerence, start to fade within 15 months. After 10 years the chemical tide has ebbed away.

The scans of some of the long-term couples, however, revealed that elements of limerence mature, enabling them to enjoy what a new report calls “ intensive companionship and sexual liveliness”.

The researchers nicknamed the couples “swans” because they have similar mental “love maps” to animals that mate for life such as swans, voles and grey foxes. 

The reactions of the swans to pictures of their beloved were identified on MRI brain scans as a burst of pleasure-producing dopamine more commonly seen in couples who are gripped in the first flush of lust.

“The findings go against the traditional view of romance – that it drops off sharply in the first decade – but we are sure it’s real,” said Arthur Aron, a psychologist at Stony Brook.

Previous research had laid out the “fracture points” in relationships as 12-15 months, three years and the infamous seven-year itch.

Aron said when he first interviewed people claiming they were still in love after an average of 21 years he thought they were fooling themselves: “But this is what the brain scans tell us and people can’t fake that.”

One pair of Aron’s swans are Billy and Michelle Jordon who, 18 years after they met, still make their friends envious. The couple, who live in Newport Beach, California, hold hands all the time. “It comes very naturally,”

said Michelle, 59.Lisa Baber, 40, and her husband David, 46, from Bristol, say they still feel the same frisson as when they got together 17 years ago.

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

Other couples who have kept their passion include Tony and Cherie Blair and Michael and Shakira Caine. Michael Howard, the former Tory leader, and his wife Sandra have been together for more than 30 years.

Aron said he and his wife Elaine, both 64, have a strong relationship but were a little jealous of the swans. “Their relationships are intense and sexually active, too, without many of the downsides of first love,” he said last week.