Science has proven it: being in love can alter the areas of the brain linked to desire, impulse, concentration or motivation.
A new love can consume our thoughts, overwhelm our emotions, and sometimes cause us to act strangely.
“People yearn for love, live for love, kill for love, and die for love,” said Helen Fisher, a researcher at the Kinsey Institute at Indiana University. “It is one of the most powerful brain systems that the human animal has developed.”
Scientists have studied what happens in our brains when we’re in those first, heady days of falling in love, and whether it can really alter the way we think and act. Their findings suggest that song lyrics and dramatic stories are not the product of exaggeration: A new love can turn our heads.
Experts define “romantic love” as a connection deeper than lust, but different from the attachment associated with a long-term relationship. In some of the small studies that have looked at this state of falling in love, researchers placed people in the early stages of a romantic relationship (usually less than a year) in MRI scanners to see what was happening in their brains while they looked at photos of Your partners. They found that participants showed greater activity in areas of the brain rich in the neurochemical dopamine and in areas that control feelings of need and desire. These regions are also activated by drugs such as cocaine, leading some experts to compare love to a kind of “natural addiction.”
Studies on prairie voles (yes, you read that right) corroborate these findings. These rodents are one of the few mammal species that mate for life, so researchers sometimes use them as a scientific model of human pairing. Studies show that when these animals bond, the brain’s reward system is similarly activated, causing the release of dopamine.
“Romantic love does not emanate from the cerebral cortex, where we think; nor does it emanate from the brain regions in the center of the head, linked to the limbic areas, which are related to emotions,” says Fisher, who led one of the first studies in humans on the subject and, in addition to his role at the Institute Kinsey is the chief scientific advisor for the couples website Match.com. “It is based on brain regions related to drive, concentration and motivation.”
This type of dopamine activity could explain why, in the early stages of love, you have the irresistible need to constantly be with the person you love, what addiction literature calls “craving.” In fact, preliminary research by Sandra Langeslag, an associate professor of behavioral neuroscience at the University of Missouri in St. Louis, suggests that some people crave their lover like they crave a drug.
In one of the few studies directly comparing love and addiction, which is still ongoing and unpublished, Langeslag showed 10 people vaping nicotine photos of their lover and photos of other people vaping (a classic experiment used to provoke desire). Participants valued their desire to be with their partner more than their desire to vape.
Other research from the Langeslag laboratory focused on the “single thinking” of love, that is, not being able to think about anything other than the partner. In a series of small studies of people in love, Langeslag found that participants reported thinking about the object of their desire approximately 65% of their waking hours, and reported having trouble concentrating on other topics. However, when they were asked for information about their loved one, they showed greater attention and better memory.
There is also some evidence that love can make people unaware of their new partner’s flaws: the phenomenon of “blind love.” Lucy Brown, a professor of neuroscience at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, found that when some study participants were shown photos of their lover early in the relationship, they had less activity in a part of the prefrontal cortex that is important for decision making and evaluating others. The results suggest that we could “suspend negative judgments about the person we are in love with,” says Brown.
If love can alter our motivation and attention, perhaps it is no surprise that people sometimes go to extremes when under its control. But indulging in lover obsession is not necessarily “irrational” behavior, at least from an evolutionary perspective, says Langeslag.
Scientists believe that humans evolved to have these types of responses – which appear to be constant across ages, sexes and cultures – because bonding and mating are essential for the survival of the species.
“Romantic love is a drive,” says Fisher. “It’s a basic mating drive that evolved millions of years ago to send your DNA into tomorrow. And it can overlook almost anything.”
Dana G. Smith
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