Orlando, Fla. ? Everyone who thinks their spouse is a pain in the caboose, listen up. New research suggests they’re actually a pain in the back.

Some spouses could cause their mate’s chronic back pain to flare up by merely being in the same room, according to a study presented Sunday.

In tests, these pain patients showed almost three times as much brain activity when their backs were stimulated as people with mates who ignored or downplayed their pain.

“It’s as if the spouse has become a stimulating cue for the pain,” said Herta Flor, a German psychologist from the University of Heidelberg.

Yet Flor said the findings do not mean people should ignore their partners’ suffering. She said people should try to distract their mate from a painful back instead of focusing on it.

Her research was presented at the annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience. About 25,000 people are in town to hear the latest findings on Parkinson’s disease, Alzheimer’s, brain and spinal cord regeneration, mental illnesses and other brain-based conditions such as pain.