Study Finds Female Beauty Is Male Drug
Brain scans show a man's reaction to seeing beautiful women is similar
to an addict's when he get his fix.
The study seems to be proof feminine beauty affects the male brain at
its most basic level.
Pictures of attractive women activated the same reward circuits in the
brains of heterosexual men as food and cocaine.
The study may help prove we are born knowing what is beautiful and what
is not.
Dan Ariely, of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a
co-author
of the study, said: "This is hard-core circuitry. Beauty is working
similar to a drug."
In a second, related study, men were shown random pictures of women for
several seconds, but could extend or cut the viewing time by pressing
keys on a keypad.
Attractive women were viewed an average of 8.7 seconds while others
were
viewed for 5.2 seconds.
The men worked frantically to keep the beautiful women on the screen,
each pressing the keyboard an average of more than 6,700 times in 40
minutes.
A researcher said: ''These guys look like rodents bar-pressing for
cocaine."
Researchers at Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General
Hospital
have published their work in the journal "Neuron".