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What Love Does to Your brain
by Dr Jill Ammon-Wexler
Executive Mentor & brainwave Researcher
**How Love Lights You Up
When you're in love your eyes light up, your face lights up --and so do four
tiny portions of your brain.
Neurobiologists Andreas Bartels and Semir Zeki of University College in London
used MRI brain scans to peer into the brains of college students in the throes
of that crazed, can't-think-of-anything-else stage of early romantic love.
When the subjects were shown photographs of their sweethearts, the MRI images
showed that four parts of their brains 'lit up.'
The researchers compared the MRI images to brain scans taken from people in
different emotional states, including sexual arousal, feelings of happiness and
cocaine-induced euphoria.
But the pattern for romantic love was unique. Interestingly, looking at a
picture of their loved one also reduced activity in three portions of the brain
active when one is upset or depressed.
**Is Love Addictive?
When you fall in love your skin flushes, you breathe heavy, and your palms tend
to sweat.
Why? Because your brain is experiencing a biochemical rush of dopamine,
norepinephrine and phenylethylamine -- close chemical cousins to amphetamines.
But it's easy to build up a tolerance to these stimulating bio-chemicals. Then,
as with any other tolerance, it takes more of the substance to get that special
feeling of infatuation.
Some neuroscientists theorize that folks who jump from one relationship to
another are 'hooked' on the intoxication of falling in love.
But interestingly, in the case of enduring romance, simply the presence of one's
partner stimulates the production of endorphins. Endorphins are the 'feel good'
biochemicals also behind the experience of 'runner's high,' and are natural
pain-killers.
**The Biology of 'Romance'
Recent research suggests that romantic attraction is actually a primitive,
biologically based drive just like hunger or thirst.
The biology of romance helps account for why we might travel cross-country for a
single kiss, and plunge into hopeless despair if our beloved turns from us. It's
the drive for romance that enables us to focus on one particular person,
although we often can't explain why.
'What we're seeing here is the biological drive to choose a mate, to focus on
one person to the exclusion of all others,' claims Helen Fisher, an
anthropologist at Rutgers University.
Research has proven that romantic attraction activates portions of the brain
with high concentrations of receptors for dopamine, Fisher explains. And
dopamine is the chemical messenger also tied to states of euphoria, craving and
addiction.
Other scientific studies have linked high levels of dopamine (and a related
agent, norepinephrine) to heightened attention and short-term memory,
hyperactivity, sleeplessness and goal-oriented behavior.
Sound like love?
When they first fall in love, Fisher explains, couples often show the signs of
surging dopamine: Increased energy, less need for sleep or food, and highly
focused attention.
**The Psychology of Love
Poets and song writers have long claimed that the power of the biochemical state
we call 'romantic love' is enough to blind one's judgment.
We all know how new lovers tend to idealize their partner --magnifying their
virtues, and explaining away their flaws.
But though 'love may be blind,' take hope!
Pamela Regan, a Cal State LA researcher, believes such 'idealization' may be
crucial to a long-term relationship. 'If you don't sweep away the person's flaws
to some extent, you're just as likely to end a relationship,' she claims.
'This at least gives you a chance,' Regan feels. 'If you think of romantic
attraction as a kind of drug that alters how you think, then in this case it's
allowing you to take some risks you wouldn't otherwise take.
Not a bad thing!
But if passionate romance is like a drug, as the MRI images suggest, then it's
bound to lose its kick. But perhaps viewing romance as a biologically based,
drug-like state can at least provide some balm for a broken heart.
**Healthy Romanticizing
In a 1996 experiment, psychologists at the State University of New York at
Buffalo followed a group of 121 dating couples. Every few months the couples
answered questionnaires to find out how much they idealized their partner, and
how well their relationship was doing.
The researchers discovered that the couples who idealized each other the most
were closest one year later.
**The Issue of Self-Love
How does the love of one's self -- also known as a 'positive self concept' or
'good self-esteem' -- fit into this picture?
Recent research indicates that depressed people who feel 'unloved' are 50% more
likely to get cancer.
Negativity, fear, anger and depression are not just 'in your head.' They are
biochemical states. Remember -- neuroscience has proven beyond a doubt that we
can alter such painful brain patterns, and consciously create the biochemical
states known as joy, happiness, motivation, and even ecstasy.
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