Oct 20, 2006

Giving Is as Good as Sex…Literally

by Laura Starita

Researchers at the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke in Bethesda, Maryland have found that giving to charity activates the same pleasure sensors in the brain associated with sex.

As reported in The Economist, the researchers hooked subjects up to a functional MRI – which maps brain activity – and then gave them money to donate to potentially controversial causes. Subjects were also able to withhold funding for causes they opposed

They found that the part of the brain that was active when a person donated happened to be the brain’s reward centre - the mesolimbic pathway, to give it its proper name - responsible for doling out the dopamine-mediated euphoria associated with sex, money, food and drugs. Thus the warm glow that accompanies charitable giving has a physiological basis.

Just one more reason to give.

Economist: The Joy of Giving