What does science say about love?

We all have an idea, more or less formed, of what love is. Most of us have experienced the emotions that invade us when we fall in love. But what happens in our body? What does science have to say about love? In recent years, science has delved into this issue to discover what pushes us to fall in love and what processes are carried out in our brain when this happens.

Love has a great impact on our lives. Our behavior changes, our mood changes, and the person in question invades a large part of our thoughts. It can even interfere with the performance of our daily tasks. Love from the adaptive point of view is intended to ensure offspring and their care in the early years. Thus, according to scientists, it would make it easier for us to group together in pairs.

The chemistry of love

When we are in the phase of falling in love, there is a great involvement of various neurotransmitters. The chemical activity of our brain changes triggering the typical symptoms. The neurotransmitters that are most closely related to this process are dopamine, norepinephrine, and serotonin.

Dopamine (DA) and norepinephrine (NE) levels increase while serotonin decreases. The first two are involved in reward mechanisms. They focus attention on him or her and thus become the center of our world. The only objective is to be reciprocated and receive the attention of that person.

This “chemical bomb” is very similar to the one produced by the consumption of cocaine. Therefore, it can be considered that The initial phase of falling in love resembles an addiction. Dopamine makes us remember tiny details about the person, while NE makes it easier for us to remember new stimuli. The decrease in serotonin causes us to have obsessive thoughts.

All of this is fed back by the expectations we form of the person we are in love with.. They tend to be expectations of our life with him or her. We imagine ourselves walking, at the movies, having dinner and doing endless activities. We idealize the other person so much that the “chemical bomb” has even more power. Given that Thoughts influence physiological reactions.

What areas of the brain are involved?

There are two brain areas that have a more direct relationship with love. These are the ventral tegmental area (VTA) that produces dopamine and causes that euphoria: a feeling of fullness that pushes us to achieve our goals. The caudate nucleus is also important when we talk about love. It deals with passion and is one of the most primitive areas.

Using neuroimaging, scientists have been able to detect activity in these areas in the brains of lovers. The involved areas are part of the reward system that makes us focus all our efforts on achieving something. Furthermore, it has been observed that the activity is similar to when, for example, we eat chocolate: it produces a similar activation pattern.

The addictive characteristic of love causes obsession to appear and the compulsion, with the couple being the target of these behaviors. There is an emotional and physical dependence and even a change in our personality and tastes. That feeling of not being able to live without that person is due to the increase in dopamine in these brain areas.

Desire, love and jealousy

Desiring and loving someone are not the same thing.. Although when we love someone, especially in the early years, we also desire them, desiring someone does not imply loving them. Desire has a hormone, testosterone. This testosterone is released in greater quantities when we are in love due to the increase in DA and NE that stimulate its production.

But what about the other way around? Does desire trigger love? It is possible, but not certain. Increased testosterone can cause this, increasing neurotransmitters related to love. But when we maintain a relationship motivated solely by desire, we are not worried about the other person maintaining relationships with other people, something that does not happen when we are in love.

While we are in love There is an obsession with being loved and we analyze everything what the other does. If we feel that we do not have the other’s attention, obsession can give way to jealousy, which is nothing more than proof of our insecurity. Jealousy would have a different evolutionary explanation for each sex. Women would suffer because of the fear of being raised alone. Men for fear of raising offspring that were not their own.

When jealousy begins, problems appear. It is time to differentiate between love and attachment. Between freedom and possession. In no case is jealousy a symptom of love. Quite the opposite, they reflect our insecurity and the false feeling that the other person belongs to us and “they can take it away from us.” It is essential to clarify that love is freedom. A relationship is an act of freedom between two people who decide to be together. Nobody belongs to anyone. As the Buddhist nun states Tenzin PalmoWhen we really love, we care about the other person’s happiness. But when instead of love, there is attachment, the only thing we care about is that our partner makes us happy.

When love ends

Rejection or breakup are difficult to deal with and the brain and neurotransmitters also take part in this phase. When there is a relationship crisis, the release of dopamine increases: this is because there is a tendency to fight for what we want and keep it. When dopamine increases and we do not get the reward we are looking for, the amygdala is activated, resulting in anger, the first phase.

The first phase in the breakup, anger makes it just one step from love to hate. Since the brain cannot afford such an expenditure of energy for a long time, once the first phase is over, resignation to the loss begins. In this second phase we enter into deep sadness, we surrender to the fact that they no longer love us.

Dopamine levels drop sharply, causing sadness and dejection. It is a kind of cathartic mechanism that prepares us to start from scratch. Also note that although the duration of sadness will depend on many factors – both external and internal – of each person, brain chemistry will be restored and in a chemically variable time we will once again be prepared to meet a new partner.

Does love have an expiration date?

It is a difficult question to answer because we have many examples to support both answers, no and yes. Although science has tried to answer this question in the most accurate way possible, research indicates that we really are monogamous but successively. That is, we would have a brain chemistry favorable to having a single partner, but during a certain time, around 4 years.

There is a universal tendency to change partners and to begin the cycle of falling in love again with a new partner, in a cyclical manner. From an evolutionary and adaptive point of view, it would have the function of achieving greater genetic diversity and more offspring, spreading DNA throughout the world.

But the truth is that Today many still long to find a partner for life.. Despite having some biological facts against having a life partner, it does not mean that it is impossible. There are couples who make desire, complicity, love and trust last forever. Fortunately, we are more than a repeated sequence in which our neurotransmitter levels vary, going through the same states over and over again.

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