Brain scans that show you really CAN be addicted to your ex

WHAT happens in the brain of someone who has been rejected by their beloved?

I used a functional brain scanning technique (fMRI) to study ten women and five men who had just been through it.

All completed a questionnaire to measure the intensity of their romantic feeling, scoring high on ‘passionate love’. Each one also said they spent more than 85 per cent of their waking hours thinking about their ex and longing for him or her to return.

The results of their scans were stunning, showing activations in different areas of the brain that are associated with f eelings of i ntense romantic l ove, deep attachment and physical pain, anxiety and distress.

Most significantly, a part of the brain known as the nucleus accumbens and orbitofrontal/prefrontal cortex — linked with one’s gains and losses, as well as craving and addiction — showed activity.

In short, these discarded lovers were still madly in love and deeply attached to their ex-partners. They were also experiencing physical and mental pain, and obsessively ruminating on what they had lost.

But the most fascinating finding was that activity in several of these brain regions has previously been correlated with the cravings of drug abusers. In other words, the rejected lovers had become addicts, craving the ‘fix’ of their ex.

Scientists know that when lovers encounter barriers to their romantic feelings, their passion intensifies. It’s a phenomenon that’s rooted in the brain. When a reward is delayed — in this case, the love of your ex — the dopamine response (associated with reward and pleasure) in the brain is heightened. And that’s when addiction can set in.

Rejected lovers can also suffer from what psychologists call ‘abandonment rage’. This stresses the heart, raises blood pressure and suppresses the immune system.

They often feel rage and love at the same

time. Eventually, they will give up and slip into feelings of lethargy, melancholy and depression. In a study of 114 men and women who had been rejected by a partner within the past eight weeks, 40 per cent had clinically measurable depression.

So has nature overdone it? Protest, stress, rage, resignation and despair: this cataclysmic response to rejection seems highly unproductive. But look at it this way: rejected men and women have wasted precious courtship time. They’ve lost economic and financial resources.

They may have lost property, even children. Their personal happiness and self-esteem have suffered. And many have lost a vital opportunity to reproduce.

So romantic rejection really can have severe social, psychological, economic and genetic consequences. But why can’t spurned lovers just move on?

One reason is that when we react overwhelmingly to being dumped, we’re motivating ourselves to entice a lover back.

If we get angry, of course, that’s less likely. But even the ‘rage response’ has evolutionary logic: it increases the estrangement between the couple, thus obliging the disappointed lover to start looking for someone new. The ‘despair response’ may have evolved to enable rejected lovers to send clear signals to relatives and friends that they need help.

And the ‘depression response’ may help give the heartbroken time to rest and plan their future. Indeed, scientists have found that mildly depressed people make clearer assessments of themselves and others.

Each of us is unique, of course, so we won’t necessarily go through all these traumatic stages of rejection.

Those likely to bounce back faster include: people who are more selfconfident, those who were securely attached to their parents during childhood, and those who can easily develop new friendships.