Acevedo received a BA in
psychology from
New York University, and a PhD in social/health psychology from
Stony Brook University. As a postdoctoral researcher, she conducted a study with
Arthur Aron (published in 2009) which found that romantic love can last inside relationships much longer than people generally assume. About 13% of people reported high levels of romantic love in their long-term relationships. In 2011, their brain scan experiment using
fMRI was published, of long-term intense romantic lovers who had been in relationships for 10 years or more. These participants showed brain activations in
dopamine-rich areas of the
reward system (like the
ventral tegmental area) when viewing a photograph of their loved one, similar to people in the early stage of romantic love, but also showed lower levels of
anxiety compared to early-stage lovers. The early stage of intense romantic love (also called
passionate love) has an obsessive element, but people experiencing romantic love in longer-term relationships show lower levels of obsession. Acevedo has written two books on
sensory processing sensitivity, related to the concept of a highly sensitive person: • • == See also ==