Cultural Significance
In 2005, Enzo Emanuele and coworkers at University of Pavia found that nerve growth factor (NGF) has high levels when people first fall in love, but these levels return to as they were after one year. To be specific, four neurotrophin levels, i.e., NGF, BDNF, NT-3, and NT-4, of 58 subjects who had recently fallen in love were compared with levels in a control group who were either single or already engaged in a long-term relationship. The results showed that NGF levels were significantly higher in the subjects in love than as compared to either of the control groups. Nerve growth factor may contribute to increased longevity and mental capacity. Centenarian Rita Levi-Montalcini has been taking a daily solution in the form of eye drops, and has stated that her brain is more active now than it was four decades ago.
Read more about this topic: Nerve Growth Factor
Famous quotes containing the words cultural and/or significance:
“We are in the process of creating what deserves to be called the idiot culture. Not an idiot sub-culture, which every society has bubbling beneath the surface and which can provide harmless fun; but the culture itself. For the first time, the weird and the stupid and the coarse are becoming our cultural norm, even our cultural ideal.”
—Carl Bernstein (b. 1944)
“The hysterical find too much significance in things. The depressed find too little.”
—Mason Cooley (b. 1927)