THE PHYSIOLOGY OF LOVE, THE HEART IN THE BRAIN
WRITTEN BY: OZURUMBA, PRECIOUS CHINEMEREM
HIII, my name is Precious. I would love that as you read this article you would also pay attention to some of the write-ups in italics and brackets, they really give my personal view to certain points and trust me you would really enjoy them.
It is a known fact that feelings control our heart, brain and body to react in so many ways. Such as, changes in the rhythm and beat of our heart, constriction or dilation of the pupils and blood vessels, nausea and high perspiration. Some of these feelings are as follows:
· Anxiety
· Hunger
· Stress
· Heart break
· Love
For this article our focus will be on the complex feeling called, love and its physiology i.e. the way love works and its function in the human system.
What is love?
In the Merriam Webster online dictionary, it is defined as an “intense feeling of deep attraction.” (personally this sounds too cliché for me)
In the Urban Dictionary, it is defined as “natures’ way of tricking people into reproducing.” ( Now this sounds more like it and I am not saying this because I’m lonely and because I listen to Taylor swift it’s just that the Urban dictionary sounds more reliable and easy to understand😂).
According to a team of scientists led by Dr, Helen Fischer at Rutgers, romantic love can be broken down into three categories: lust, attraction and attachment and each of these categories are characterized by its own set of hormones.
Thousands of years ago before man evolved to have a more complex and intuitive brain, love wasn’t really a thing, a man and a woman will mate just because it was natural, and there was nothing to it. A woman would find a mate with good body and features so that her child will come out strong and a man would mate just to kill his sexual urges ( lol, men born in that time will marvel at the concept called feminism and child support🤣) . As man evolved and became more complex, so did these feelings, not just love but several others. With this, it is to be known that survival and reproduction are what fuel human beings and love is just another phenomenon that helps us accomplish those two goals.
What happens in the brain when someone is in love?
People who are in love exhibit a weird euphoric feeling when they are around loved ones. I took my time to observe two annoying lovers, Sonya and Marcel. Whenever Sonya meets with Marcel she is always excited and she totally forgets I exist (DIE MARCEL DIE!!😒). This is because the part of the brain associated with pleasure is active. This is as a result of increase in blood flow through the parts of the brain that are more active during that given moment. These areas are doused with dopamine receptors. During this process the following regions are active:
· The ventral tegmental area.
· The nucleus accumbens. ( I swear this is what I saw on Google😂)
· The paraventricular hypothalamic nucleus.
Hormones drive love, researchers have scanned the brain of people who are madly in love and found a heavy surge of dopamine. An evidence of this great surge of dopamine is what happens when Sonya is with Marcel. Dopamine is a neurotransmitter that is associated with the cloud nine feeling. When dopamine binds to its receptor it causes a chemical reaction in the body, making people in love feel as if they are slightly high. A lot of street drugs like cocaine and ecstasy mimic the effects of dopamine. The term love is drunk is not much of a lie. ( falling in love = cocaine, but I fall in love at least 5 times a day. Now I know why I kidnapped someone’s child as prank for a tik tok challenge. I am literally always high.)🤦♀️
These reactions in the brain are not circumscribed to just one hormone (dopamine). These hormones are very much associated with love and elation. They include:
· Oxytocin
· Vasopressin
Oxytocin: One may be wondering how a hormone that is pivotal in labour and childbirth causes intimacy in the life of Sonya and Marcel. Oxytocin is heavily associated with intimacy. It is important in mother-child bonds. It helps the baby identify the mother. It extends further from mother and child bonding all the way to romantic love.
Vasopressin: This very hormone is more associated with commitment and faithfulness. Vasopressin casually increases humans’ willingness to engage in risky, mutually beneficial operations. ( I am quite sure this hormone helps in reabsorption of water but hey, we really learn new things everyday.)
What happens to the body when someone is in love?
Let’s analyse Sonya and Marcel meetings, whenever Sonya is around Marcel there is some sort giddy feeling she has, she has a more intense heartbeat, sweaty palms, and the realization that she can’t think of anyone else or anything else except Marcel. In most cases she witnesses an increase in lustful feelings. All these are a result of the hormones listed in the above question. ( Not trying to hate on you Sonya but I wanted to cry in laughter when you told me this. Please do not come after me guys lol, this is what she told me and I really don’t like romance ) 🤣🤣😂
Difference between love and lust?
After carrying out extensive research, these are my findings; (when i mean extensive research I mean the internet)
Both sexual attraction and lasting love, are as a result of stimulation of the striatum - an area of the brain that includes the nucleus accumbens (the rewards centre).
For a love story to be long lasting there has to be a drive, a motivation and a reason to be in it. This is as a result of the stimulation of the insula, an area of the brain associated with motivation. The insula is a cortical region linked with salience detection, self-awareness, interoception, pain, processing and addiction. It drives pleasurable and life sustaining activities. (To ensure that we continue to engage in the them). This implies that lasting love has an intrinsic “value” that sexual attraction does not have. In the case of sexual desire, it is seeing that most of the striatum is stimulated only, which doesn’t necessarily give the feeling of love, especially long lasting love. It only gives the sense of only sexual desire, which is gone after sexual intercourse. This simply means that sexual desires are somewhat of a guise made by the brain to sustain constant reproduction through sexual intercourse, while love is what keeps it that way. The striatum is the portion of the brain most closely associated with addiction. If a person wishes to build and maintain a long lasting love the striatum must be stimulated. It is this neurobiological rush that drives couples towards the slow and steady development of mature intimacy and longer-term.
Furthermore, lust is driven by the desire for sexual gratification. The hypothalamus in the brain plays a big role in this, stimulating the production of the sex hormones testosterone and oestrogen from the testes and ovaries.
Not to mince words, you can feel sexual lust or desire for someone without the feeling or having love for them, but you can’t love romantically without the presence of sexual desires/lust. (uhm I didn’t understand either, but y’all be safe out there)😉
How does the love of friend’s work?
In this case we see the effect of attachment only, there is no lust or attraction. Remember love is the combination of attachment, lust and attraction. The case of friends, family, social cordiality and the rest shows us the importance of having separate areas in the brain that control lust, attachment and attraction. It also proves to us that all things patterning to what we feel, how we feel and when we feel have been calculated by the brain. There are two primary hormones involved in this relationship, they are oxytocin and vasopressin.
How does our brain relate physical attraction with love?
When you are attracted to someone, your senses pick up subconscious attributes that you might never pin point. Pheromones are volatile airborne chemical signals that are released externally to help communication between individuals of the same species. These signals are received by the vomeronasal organ. Pheromones are mostly seeing in lower class animals but in humans there is still a serious argument on if we rely on pheromones. (Guys I have a confession I love the smell of a friends armpits especially when it isn’t really sweaty but when it is just a mixture of sweat and his deodorant. Does that count as pheromones?)😜
Attraction to a person, is it by chance?
Evolutionary, diversity is favoured and especially genetic diversity because it leads to greater chances of survival.
Attraction is not by chance, there are careful calculations that occur in many different parts of our bodies that helps us find the person that we truly desire, it is a process. Our eyes also do a lot of work; we are looking for little signals that give us evidence that the person that we are looking at has a good survival fitness and features.
Is love likened to an addiction?
The reason why love is likened to addiction is because, the striatum and the insula, the portion of the brain closely associated with addiction must be stimulated if a person must be in love. Also, while in love especially in the early stages of love it is seen that the serotonin levels are low and the dopamine levels are high. Dopamine is a neurotransmitter in the body responsible for allowing you to feel pleasure, satisfaction and motivation. Which is usually at an all-time high in addicts. While, serotonin known to be a neurotransmitter that acts as a mood stabilizer is low in addicts especially when they encounter their triggers. It is also this neurobiological rush that pushes couples towards the slow and steady development of mature intimacy and longer term relationships. ( God, I really have questions)😒
What is the concept of monogamy and polygamy with respect to the brain?
Most people will say a monogamous and polygamous relationship is by choice. Based on findings this concept is strongly associated with the hormones. These hormones include vasopressin and oxytocin. They are associated with the physical and emotional mobilization and helps support vigilance, bonding and behaviours needed for guarding a partner territory. Monogamous relationships occur as a result of the high amount of vasopressin and oxytocin, while Polygamous relationship is caused by the low amount of vasopressin and oxytocin receptors in the brain. The lower density of receptors makes the more provocative.( if you ask me I don’t believe this sh* t for one bit)🤷♀️
Why do people stay in bad relationships and still say it’s love?
This can be related to domestic violence, were individuals involved in relationships do not want to leave their partners. Still under the influence of oxytocin and vasopressin. These hormones are heavily associated with intimacy, building of bonds, identification of loved ones, faithfulness and commitment. Now, when incidences like domestic violence occur, the areas that possess these oxytocin and vasopressin receptors are activated. At this moment, the part of the brain associated with judgement and with emotions are inactive. Also, in this case we see the disadvantage of high dopamine and low serotonin which are involved in addiction. The same way addicts keep feeding their addictions even when they know its eating them up, a lover just to feel loved may decide to partner up with his/her abuser. ( think about this guys, your options are abuse or loneliness, what will you pick logically?) 😘
To draw the curtain, love is truly complicated, so much is yet to be uncovered on the effect of love on the brain, and the cause of love. We know this, love is natural, it is nature’s way of reacting to the increased complexity of the man’s brain and mind. Probably if there was no love, man wouldn’t have survived this long. We also see that love can be an addiction, and that it probably starts out as one. Through love and other complex feelings, we see that the brain can be figuratively divided into two; a side that controls cognitive and analytical behaviour known as the joystick or body of the brain and a side that controls our feelings, the way we see things beyond logic and calculation known as the heart of the brain. These two parts work in a tandem giving us the complex human mind that we are trying to understand today. ( if you loved my article please just comment, subscribe to our News letter and share with your friends and be sure that I am sending you virtual hugs.) 🤞😘
WRITTEN BY: OZURUMBA, PRECIOUS CHINEMEREM
REFRENCES
https://sexandrelationshiphealing.com/blog/
https://healthmatters.nyp.org/
(for sure youtube)
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