ArticlePsychoneuroendocrinology2019
Falling in love is associated with immune system gene regulation.
Article in Psychoneuroendocrinology, 2019. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. It is linked to trial NCT05654441 (Low-grade Inflammatory Challenge and Social Behavior), which is not on this map. Cited by 9 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Low-grade Inflammatory Challenge and Social Behavior
Who cites it
9 citing papers in PubMed, 28 citations in OpenAlex.
- The neurobiology of love and addiction: Central nervous system signaling and energy metabolism.Cognitive, affective & behavioral neuroscience · 2025Review
- Association between SARS-CoV-2 infection during pregnancy and placental pathology assessed by histology and gene expression.Pregnancy (Hoboken, N.J.) · 2025Article
- Being Female and in a Romantic Relationship Enhances the Association between Satisfaction with Love Life and Capacity to Love.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2023Article
- Toward consistent reporting of sample characteristics in studies investigating the biological mechanisms of romantic love.Frontiers in psychology · 2023Review
- Proximate and Ultimate Perspectives on Romantic Love.Frontiers in psychology · 2021Review
- Infection threat shapes our social instincts.Behavioral ecology and sociobiology · 2021Review
- Subjective social status and inflammatory gene expression.Health psychology : official journal of the Division of Health Psychology, American Psychological Association · 2019Article
- PsychoBehavioroimmunology: Connecting the Behavioral Immune System to Its Physiological Foundations.Frontiers in psychology · 2019Article
- In the Flow of Life: Capturing Affective Socializing Dynamics Using a Wearable Sensor and Intensive Daily Diaries.Socius : sociological research for a dynamic worldArticle
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
4 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
Although falling in love is one of the most important and psychologically potent events in human life, the somatic implications of new romantic love remain poorly understood. Psychological, immunological, and reproductive perspectives offer competing predictions of the specific transcriptional regulatory shifts that might accompany the experience of falling in love. To characterize the impact of romantic love on human genome function, we conducted genome-wide transcriptome profiling of 115 circulating immune cell samples collected from 47 young women over the course of a 2-year longitudinal study. Analyses revealed a selective alteration in immune cell gene regulation characterized by up-regulation of Type I interferon response genes associated with CD1C+/BDCA-1+ dendritic cells (DCs) and CLEC4C+/BDCA-2+ DCs, and a reciprocal down-regulation of α-defensin-related transcripts associated with neutrophil granulocytes. These effects emerged above and beyond the effects of changes in illness, perceived social isolation, and sexual contact. These findings are consistent with a selective up-regulation of innate immune responses to viral infections (e.g., Type I interferons and DC) and with DC facilitation of sexual reproduction, and provide insight into the immunoregulatory correlates of one of the keystone experiences in human life.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.