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Feb 10, 2023 · Longer-term love also boosts activation in more cognitive areas of the brain such as the angular gyrus, the part of the brain associated with complex language functions, and the mirror neuron system, a region that helps you anticipate the actions of a loved one. That’s the reasoning behind couples who finish each other’s sentences or have a ...
In the Stony Brook study, he added, the MRI scans showed that the pattern of activity in the participants’ dopamine reward systems was the same as that detected in the brains of participants in early-stage romantic love. For those whose long-term marriage has transitioned from passionate, romantic love to a more compassionate, routine type of ...
- Overview
- Brain Regions Involved in Love
- Neurotransmitters: The Chemical Messengers of Love
- Emotional and Behavioral Changes: The Impact of Love
- Love's Lasting Legacy: Long-term Effects on the Brain and Relationships
- The Bigger Picture of Love and Neuroscience
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Love is that famous four-letter word that has inspired countless songs and sonnets. But what is it about this powerful emotion that makes our hearts thump, minds race, and palms sweat?
"Love is a powerful feeling, and it is often a little different depending on what a person is giving to or receiving from the person who they love," says Heidi Moawad, MD, an associate editor of Neurology and Clinical Assistant Professor at Case Western Reserve University.
"For example, maternal love is often protective. And romantic love will eventually also become protective as people grow closer to each other and learn each other's vulnerabilities, but it doesn't usually start out that way."
Falling in love can be a thrilling, emotional experience, but what exactly is happening in your brain when you fall in love? It can feel like your brain has switched to vacation mode without telling the rest of you. Suddenly, logic and rationality seem to fly out the window, and you're left with a head full of romantic notions straight out of a Disney movie or 90's rom-com.
Those feelings are all part of the neuroscience of love. The chemicals that flood your brain can make you feel like you're on top of the world.
No matter what the poets say, love doesn't actually come from the heart. Of course, writing verses about what's happening in the depths of the ventral tegmental area sounds a bit less lyrical.
Thanks to advances in imaging technology, scientists now have a much clearer picture of what happens in the brain when people experience love.
For starters, it isn't a singular emotion. It’s made up of many different elements and emotions, including physical attraction, romance, and affection. What exactly is love, then? It’s been the question posed by countless philosophers, poets, and songwriters–so it only makes sense that scientists would also take a crack at answering it.
Perhaps not surprisingly, there are actually many different theories about what constitutes love, but one popular model suggests that it involves lust, attraction, and attachment. According to researchers, each element involves a different system in the brain.
"Each of these drives are mediated by different brain regions—so the frontal lobe is involved in the prosocial aspects of romantic love, and the ventral tegmental area is involved in the reward feeling of attraction and getting positive feedback that someone who you are attracted to also likes you," Moawad says.
What Happens When We Feel Romantic Chemistry, and How Much Does It Matter?
The early stages of love often feel like a whirlwind of emotion. We see everything through rose-colored glasses (which is why we don't see the red flags) and the euphoric feeling overrides everything else—but there's an important reason why.
When you fall in love, the emotion triggers the release of chemicals such as oxytocin, vasopressin, and dopamine. Certain chemicals are associated with different stages of falling in love.
Falling in love can feel like a roller coaster of emotion as you careen through thrilling highs and unexpected twists and turns. Not everyone experiences the same emotional or behavioral changes when they catch feelings for someone, but common experiences include:
•Happiness and euphoria: The early stages of love can be one of life's peak experiences. It can be a time of intense euphoria and happiness.
•Intense feelings: Your emotions might feel more intense and deeper than ever before. This includes the positive ones, such as love and lust, but also the negative ones, such as anxiety or jealousy.
•Changes in priorities: We often experience a shift in our priorities and commitments, particularly during the early stages of a relationship. This can help strengthen your connection to your new partner, but it can sometimes happen at the expense of other people and responsibilities in your life.
While we often think of love in positive terms, it isn't always sunshine and roses. Love can sometimes have a darker side, including feelings of hurt, jealousy, irrationality, and other challenging emotions.
The dopamine rush that makes us feel madly in love with someone can also leave us feeling despondent when we are apart.
The neurological changes in the brain when we fall in love aren't just a temporary effect. Experiencing love, particularly romantic love, can have powerful long-term effects on the brain.
•Stronger bonding: The chemical changes we experience when we fall in love promote bonding, and those changes can help make the brain more attuned to the people who matter the most to us.
•Improve responsiveness: We might also experience shifts in the neural pathways of the brain, rewiring some connections and strengthening others. Such changes can connect us more to the needs of those we love, and improve our ability to relate to them in the years to come.
•Increased satisfaction: The shifts in the brain's reward system mean that our relationships with those we love bring motivation and pleasure to our lives. This can help us to feel more satisfied in our long-term relationships.
•Better cognitive functioning: Love is also associated with improvements in certain cognitive functions such as memory.
•Greater stress resilience: It helps people cope more effectively with stress, fostering greater resilience in the face of life's challenges.
It might not sound particularly romantic, but it's your neurotransmitters, hormones, and hypothalamus (along with other regions of your brain) that lie at the heart of every love story.
Dopamine–that "feel good" hormone that causes feelings of euphoria and pleasure–is undeniably the star of the show, but love isn't a one-act play. Other chemicals play a part, too, including oxytocin, serotonin, estrogen, and testosterone.
It's also important to recognize that while love can come in different forms, research also shows that these forms of love may share underlying neurobiological mechanisms. For example, one study found that maternal and passionate love both increase activity in the ventral tegmental area.
When we fall for someone, key brain regions light up like a busy city skyline at night. The ventral tegmental area floods the brain with dopamine. The brain’s reward system kicks into overdrive, processing these rewarding sensations and linking the rush of passion with other complex emotions like attachment and empathy. It's why you might feel addicted to that special person you can't stop thinking about.
The brain in love is passionate, euphoric, and sometimes a little irrational. Love isn’t static, however. It can shift and change over time, from the high thrills of a passion to the devastating lows of jealousy and longing.
While love doesn't actually come from the heart, you can take solace in knowing that your love story is written in the chemistry and function of something far more complex–your brain.
Abstract. Romantic love could be considered as a collection of activities associated with the acquisition and retention of emotions needed to survive and reproduce. These emotions change the individual's behavioural strategies in a way that will increase the likelihood of achieving these goals. Love may be defined as an emergent property of an ...
- Krishna G Seshadri
- 10.4103/2230-8210.183479
- 2016
- Jul-Aug 2016
Long-term love activates the angular gyrus part of the brain, which is involved with complex language processes. Long-term love also activates the part of the brain involved with anticipating the needs of loved ones, called the mirror neuron system. For these reasons, studies show long-term love enhances thinking and creativity skills.
Dec 1, 2014 · Abstract. The effects of the human pair-bonded state of “romantic love” on cognitive function remain relatively unexplored. Theories on cognitive priming suggest that a state of love may activate love-relevant schemas, such as mentalizing about the beliefs of another individual, and may thus improve mentalizing abilities.
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Feb 12, 2015 · Cacioppo et al. (2012) have suggested that romantic love-related brain regions can be divided into subcortical and cortical brain networks where the former mediates reward, motivation, and emotion regulation, and the latter mainly supports social cognition, attention, memory, mental associations, and self-representation.
