Crazy in love
Falling hard for someone can actually alter your behavior and thoughts, researchers find
“People pine for love, they live for love, they kill for love, and they die for love.”
— Helen Fisher, senior research fellow at the Kinsey Institute
New love can consume our thoughts, supercharge our emotions and, on occasion, cause us to act out of character. “People pine for love, they live for love, they kill for love, and they die for love,” said Helen Fisher, a senior research fellow at the Kinsey Institute at Indiana University. “It’s one of the most powerful brain systems the human animal has ever evolved.”
Scientists have studied our brains by drugs like cocaine, leading some when we are in those early days of experts to liken love to a sort of infatuation and whether it alters “natural addiction.” how we think and what we do. Studies on prairie voles back up
Their findings suggest that song these findings. The rodents are one lyrics and dramatic plotlines don’t of the few mammal species that mate overstate it: New love can mess with for life, so researchers use them as a our heads. scientific model for human partnerships.
Experts define “romantic love” Studies show that when these as a connection deeper than lust animals pair up, the brain’s reward but distinct from the attachment system is activated, triggering the associated with a long-term release of dopamine. partnership. “Romantic love does not emanate
In a few of the small studies that from your cerebral cortex, where have examined this googly-eyed you do your thinking. It does not state, researchers put people in the emanate from the brain regions early stages of a romantic relationship in the middle of your head, linked (typically less than a year) in with the limbic areas, linked
MRI scanners to see brain activity with emotions,” said Fisher, who while they looked at pictures of their conducted one of the first human paramours. studies on the topic and, along with
They found that the participants her role at the Kinsey Institute, is the showed increased activity in areas of chief science adviser to Match.com. the brain that are rich in the neurochemical “It’s based in the brain regions linked dopamine and control feelings with drive, with focus, with motivation.” of wanting and desire.
These regions are also activated This dopamine activity may explain why, in new relationships, you have the urge to be with your beloved constantly — what the addiction literature calls “craving.”
Indeed, preliminary research conducted by Sandra Langeslag, an associate professor in behavioral neuroscience at the University of Missouri, 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 ongoing and has not been published, Langeslag showed 10 people who vaped nicotine either pictures of their lover or pictures of other people vaping — a classic experiment used to invoke craving. The participants ranked their desire to be with their partner higher than their desire to vape.
Other research by Langeslag’s lab looked at the single-mindedness of love — of being unable to think about anything else besides your paramour.
In a series of small studies on people in the throes of new love, Langeslag found that participants reported thinking about the object of their desire 65% of their waking hours and said they had trouble focusing on other topics.
But when people were prompted with information related to their beloved, they showed increased attention and had enhanced memory.
There is also evidence that love can render people oblivious to a new partner’s faults — the “love is blind” phenomenon.
Lucy Brown, a professor of neuroscience at Albert Einstein College of Medicine, found that when some study participants were shown pictures of their lover early in a relationship, they had less activity in a part of the prefrontal cortex that is important for decision-making and evaluating others.
The findings suggest that we might “suspend negative judgments of the person we’re in love with,” she said.
If love can alter our motivation and attention, it’s no surprise that people can go to extremes when they’re in its thrall. But giving in to your obsession with your lover isn’t necessarily “irrational” behavior, at least from an evolutionary perspective, Langeslag said.
Scientists believe humans evolved to have such responses — which seem consistent across age, gender and culture — because bonding and mating are essential for the survival of the species.
“Romantic love is a drive,” Fisher said. “It’s a basic mating drive that evolved millions of years ago to send your DNA on to tomorrow. And it can overlook just about anything.”