A new study conducted by Drexel University scientists has found that the brains of women respond better to romantic signals when they are full on food, suggesting that men are not the only ones to be swayed to romantic situations through their stomachs.

Dr. Alice Ely, a researcher at the University of California-San Diego, and her colleagues from Drexler studied the reward responses of women to different romantic cues, including those who have experienced going on diets and those who have not dieted.

The researchers discovered that there was a noticeable activation in the brains of both women who have experienced dieting and those that have not in response to pictures depicting romantic scenes. This was better observed in the neural regions related to reward after the women have eaten compared to when they were still feeling hunger.

Previous studies have suggested that when people are hungry, they become more sensitive to different rewarding stimuli such as money, drugs and food. This finding was not observed in the recent study.

"This data suggests that eating may prime or sensitize young women to rewards beyond food," Ely said.

"It also supports a shared neurocircuitry for food and sex."

In an earlier pilot study, Ely and her team examined medical data collected from women who were in their college age. They wanted to find out how the brains of these women are impacted by food cues, as well as how such responses differ between those who have a history of dieting and those who have not dieted.

The researchers determined that women who were historical dieters responded more significantly to positive cues related to food compared to those who had not experienced dieting or those who were on a diet at the time.

Women who had a history of dieting have also been identified to be more at risk to gaining weight. The researchers believe that this finding proves that the reward-related part of their brains could have been more inclined to seek food compared to women who had not experienced dieting.

Through the use of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) technology, Ely and her colleagues found that the brain circuitry of non-dieters and historical dieters relating to reward responded better to romantic signals when they have eaten.

The researchers, however, noted that the neural activity of the brains of historical dieters noticeably differed in one region compared to that of non-dieters. Historical dieters were shown to be more responsive to romantic signals in their brains' middle temporal gyrus when they have eaten and their superior frontal gyrus when they were fasting.

The findings of the Drexel University study are featured in the journal Appetite.

Photo: Thee Erin | Flickr