Impact of couple conflict and mediation on how romantic partners are seen: An fMRI study.

Previous studies on romantic love have reported increased neural activity in the brain's reward circuitry such as the striatum. To date, the extent to which this activity is modulated by couple conflict in general and mediated couple conflict in particular, is unknown. The present study seeks to fill this gap by randomly assigning 36 romantic heterosexual couples to a mediated or non-mediated conflict discussion.