Message-ID: <Pine.NEB.4.58.0401071459220.16871@panix3.panix.com>
From: Alan Sondheim <sondheim@panix.com>
To: Cyb <cybermind@listserv.aol.com>,
"WRYTING-L : Writing and Theory across Disciplines" <WRYTING-L@LISTSERV.UTORONTO.CA>
Subject: love and ocd
Date: Wed, 7 Jan 2004 14:59:43 -0500 (EST)
NCBI PubMed [_] 1: Psychol Med. 1999 May;29(3):741-5. Related Articles, Links Comment in: + Psychol Med. 2000 Jan;30(1):241-2. Alteration of the platelet serotonin transporter in romantic love. Marazziti D, Akiskal HS, Rossi A, Cassano GB. Dipartmento di Psichiatria, Neurobiologia, Farmacologia e Biotecnologie, University of Pisa, Italy. BACKGROUND: The evolutionary consequences of love are so important that there must be some long-established biological process regulating it. Recent findings suggest that the serotonin (5-HT) transporter might be linked to both neuroticism and sexual behaviour as well as to obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). The similarities between an overvalued idea, such as that typical of subjects in the early phase of a love relationship, and obsession, prompted us to explore the possibility that the two conditions might share alterations at the level of the 5-HT transporter. METHODS: Twenty subjects who had recently (within the previous 6 months) fallen in love, 20 unmedicated OCD patients and 20 normal controls, were included in the study. The 5-HT transporter was evaluated with the specific binding of 3H-paroxetine (3H-Par) to platelet membranes. RESULTS: The results showed that the density of 3H-Par binding sites was significantly lower in subjects who had recently fallen in love and in OCD patients than in controls. DISCUSSION: The main finding of the present study is that subjects who were in the early romantic phase of a love relationship were not different from OCD patients in terms of the density of the platelet 5-HT transporter, which proved to be significantly lower than in the normal controls. This would suggest common neurochemical changes involving the 5-HT system, linked to psychological dimensions shared by the two conditions, perhaps at an ideational level. PMID: 10405096 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE] _________________________________________________________________ Write to the Help Desk NCBI | NLM | NIH Department of Health & Human Services Freedom of Information Act | Disclaimer Dec 22 2003 07:15:02