Image From: www.xkcd.com
According to a new meta-analysis study done by research as Syracuse University, falling in love only takes your brain a fifth of a second. It also lights up the same areas of the brain associated with cocaine use and (oddly enough) intellectual stimulation.
In other words…falling in love is like getting high and reading a really great book? Sorry, not quite.
In other words…falling in love is like getting high and reading a really great book? Sorry, not quite.
Syracuse Psychology professor, Dr. Stephanie Ortigue, PhD said that her study “The Neuroimaging of Love,” showed that falling in love lights up the same euphoric centers of the brain associated with cocaine, but also affects the intellectual centers of the brain.
Ortigue’s study found that 12 different areas of the brain work together to release that silly/happy/love-at-first-sight feeling. Which is actually caused by euphoria-inducing chemicals including dopamine, oxytocin, adrenaline, and vasopression. According to the press release put out by Syracuse University, “The love feeling also affects sophisticated cognitive functions, such as mental representation, metaphors, and body image.”
The ScienceDaily article begs the questions “Does the heart fall in love, or the brain?”
Willy Wonka would ask it differently. “Tell me, where is fancy bred…in the heart or in the head?"
According to Ortigue: The Head. Still, she said in the press release, “the heart is also related because the complex concept of love is formed by both bottom-up and top-down processes from the brain to the heart and vice versa. For instance, activation in some parts of the brain can generate stimulations to the heart, butterflies in the stomach. Some symptoms we sometimes feel as a manifestation of the heart may sometimes be coming from the brain.”
Ortigue said that her results confirm that "love has a scientific basis.”
(What do you know, it's not all Hallmark cards and Lifetime movies afterall!)
She went on to say that the study could have major implications for neuroscience and mental health research. When people fall out of love, they can get emotionally stressed and depressed. By seeing how the brain lights up when falling in love, scientists could potentially start to understand the neuropathways responsible for love-sickness.
Ortigue and her team worked with researchers from West Virginia University and a university hospital in Switzerland. The results of the study are published in this month’s Journal of Sexual Medicine.
Interestingly enough, they found that different types of love light up different areas of the brain. Unconditional love between a parent and a child or a strong friendship utilizes different portions of the brain than passionate love does. Passionate love is sparked by the reward part of the brain. This is the same part of the brain that lights up when you give yourself that extra cookie. Interesting.
So again, Where is fancy bred? In the heart or in the head? Well… the head, obviously. It makes sense, of course, seeing as how the heart’s primary biological function is to pump oxygenated blood to the body and deoxygenated blood to the lungs, not make us act like blithering idiots. Let’s leave the dopamine reactions to the brain, shall we?
I know that sounds pretty unromantic of me, but what can I say? Regardless of what the icons of the <3 look like, biological specimens are actually pretty repulsive.
I'm sorry, you think the brain is equally as repulsive? Well that’s your call. But we can transplant a pig heart into a person and I certainly couldn’t fall in love with a guy without a brain. Could you?
Ortigue’s study found that 12 different areas of the brain work together to release that silly/happy/love-at-first-sight feeling. Which is actually caused by euphoria-inducing chemicals including dopamine, oxytocin, adrenaline, and vasopression. According to the press release put out by Syracuse University, “The love feeling also affects sophisticated cognitive functions, such as mental representation, metaphors, and body image.”
The ScienceDaily article begs the questions “Does the heart fall in love, or the brain?”
Willy Wonka would ask it differently. “Tell me, where is fancy bred…in the heart or in the head?"
According to Ortigue: The Head. Still, she said in the press release, “the heart is also related because the complex concept of love is formed by both bottom-up and top-down processes from the brain to the heart and vice versa. For instance, activation in some parts of the brain can generate stimulations to the heart, butterflies in the stomach. Some symptoms we sometimes feel as a manifestation of the heart may sometimes be coming from the brain.”
Ortigue said that her results confirm that "love has a scientific basis.”
(What do you know, it's not all Hallmark cards and Lifetime movies afterall!)
She went on to say that the study could have major implications for neuroscience and mental health research. When people fall out of love, they can get emotionally stressed and depressed. By seeing how the brain lights up when falling in love, scientists could potentially start to understand the neuropathways responsible for love-sickness.
Ortigue and her team worked with researchers from West Virginia University and a university hospital in Switzerland. The results of the study are published in this month’s Journal of Sexual Medicine.
Interestingly enough, they found that different types of love light up different areas of the brain. Unconditional love between a parent and a child or a strong friendship utilizes different portions of the brain than passionate love does. Passionate love is sparked by the reward part of the brain. This is the same part of the brain that lights up when you give yourself that extra cookie. Interesting.
So again, Where is fancy bred? In the heart or in the head? Well… the head, obviously. It makes sense, of course, seeing as how the heart’s primary biological function is to pump oxygenated blood to the body and deoxygenated blood to the lungs, not make us act like blithering idiots. Let’s leave the dopamine reactions to the brain, shall we?
I know that sounds pretty unromantic of me, but what can I say? Regardless of what the icons of the <3 look like, biological specimens are actually pretty repulsive.
I'm sorry, you think the brain is equally as repulsive? Well that’s your call. But we can transplant a pig heart into a person and I certainly couldn’t fall in love with a guy without a brain. Could you?
