Are you walking into walls with flushed cheeks and sweaty palms? Are you experiencing a pounding in your chest and a decreased appetite? Well, the love doctor has paid your heart a visit. And it’s best for you to know that cupid does pack in some compelling chemicals in his love darts.
"People live for love, die for love, kill for love. It can be stronger than the drive to stay alive." Anthropologist Helen Fisher, famous to have the last word on the biology of love and attraction, has been quoted as saying. We’ve heard innumerable and heartrending tales of undying, unflinching love. But, could we ever imagine that the ventral tegmental area and the caudate nucleus of the brain become active when people are madly in love?
Yes, there is science involved when people go loony over love.
In her book, Why We Love: The Nature and Chemistry of Romantic Love, Fisher proposed that humanity has evolved three core brain systems for mating and reproduction:
Lust: The sex drive or libido.
Attraction: Early stage, intense romantic love.
Attachment : Deep feelings of union with a long term partner.
Fisher and her colleagues have put 49 men and women into a brain scanner to study the brain circuitry of romantic love: 17 who had just fallen madly in love, 15 who had just been dumped, and 17 who reported that they were still in love after an average of 21 years of marriage. One of her central ideas is that romantic love is a drive that is stronger than the sex drive. As she has said, "After all, if you casually ask someone to go to bed with you and they refuse, you don't slip into a depression, commit suicide or homicide--but around the world people suffer terribly from romantic rejection."
One of the most primal of those desires is that a possible partner smells right. According to a report published in Time magazine, “One of the most primal of desires is that a possible partner smells right. Less surprising than the importance of the way a partner smells is the way that partner looks and sounds. Humans are suckers for an attractive face and a sexy shape. Men see ample breasts and broad hips as indicators of a woman's ability to bear and nurse children--though most don't think about such matters so lucidly. Women see a broad chest and shoulders as a sign of someone who can clobber a steady supply of meat and keep lions away from the cave. And while a hairy chest and a full beard have fallen out of favor in the waxed and buffed 21st century, they are historically--if unconsciously--seen as signs of healthy testosterone flow that gives rise to both fertility and strength. A deep voice, also testosterone driven, can have similarly seductive power.”
The science of romance and attraction cannot be understood without defining the importance of looking into each other’s eyes. One recent study conducted in New York involved getting random strangers of the opposite sex into a room to socialize. The researchers asked the strangers to pair off and tell each other personal details about themselves. They were then told to stare into each other’s eyes for two minutes. After the encounter most of the couples reported feelings of attraction and one couple went on to marry.
All said and done, we cannot fight the truth that love is not, and can never be, an exact science.
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