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The Neurobiology of Romantic Love

This is about how our behaviors are hugely influenced through innate, hormonal drives that are hard-wired to our brains from millions of years of evolution. In addition we will also explore some practical behavioral issues that deeply affect romantic relationships.

Like it or not, the truth is that romantic love originally comes from lust – the craving for sex. While this may offend some people’s idealistic thoughts, it should not. What we are merely pointing out is that first came lust, then romantic love followed – and there’s quite a difference.

As we discussed in Lust and Attraction, the fulfillment of sexual desires triggers a very potent biochemical response – the release of the hormones serotonin, oxytocin, dopamine and endogenous opioids (natural, opiate-like pain-pleasure chemicals similar to morphine). All of these substances together represent an amazing formula for relaxing the nerves and muscles, flooding the body with immense pleasure. And the combination of the biochemicals cause all this to happen.

Also discussed in “Lust and Attraction,” is the fact that humans identify each other through facial recognition and non-verbal communication (body language, gestures and eye contact). Through millions of years of evolution, men’s’ role as hunters and providers caused their visual-spatial perception to develop enormously, while women’s interpersonal roles in mothering, teaching, and developing their children’s skills, along with being an interpersonal mediator between the father and the children, developed their verbal and social abilities.

Though both sexes experience attraction to the opposite sex and romantic love with equal passion, they differ on their type of choices based on their evolutionary strengths. Men (as hunters) are more easily sexually aroused by visual stimuli (visual pornography, girl watching) and choose their mates with emphasis on youth and beauty. Conversely, women (strong in verbal and social skills) choose their mates with emphasis on money, education, social position and reliability.

Bear in mind, that these generalizations do not take into account one’s individual genes, social and cultural values, and past experience with the opposite sex. Living and learning shape us into a unique person. However, in our understanding of the neurobiology of romantic love, we see that the powerful hormonal influence of oxytocin and dopamine is universal – and love, in the opinion of many scientists, results from the mixture of biochemicals and environmental influences.

Oxytocin drives people to first, be attracted to the opposite sex and then to identify and focus their attraction on a specific individual. They become our romantic ideal, the object of our affection, occupying our thoughts and desires to an amazing degree.

Dopamine is a “pleasure biochemical” that is part of the human behavioral ‘attraction system’ and data supports the fact that this system is strong linked with mammalian reward and motivation, which functions with the brain’s dopaminergic reward pathways. And these dopaminergic reward pathways contribute to the "general arousal" component of romantic love. To carry this reasoning further is to acknowledge that romantic love is primarily a motivation system, rather than an emotion.

And this is why some scientists argue that romantic love – though a lofty ideal – is the working of biochemicals that drive us to pursue specific partners, so we may breed a higher grade of offspring and better our species. And maybe both sides are right, depending on how one chooses to see it. Yet no one can dispute that romantic love is a universal phenomenon that drives us to elevate our life style, our social behavior, and our dreams in every aspect.

Brain functioning also explains patterns in differences between how men and women process attraction to the opposite sex. As noted before, though Men are more easily sexually aroused by visual stimuli (left brain-objective functioning), and women choose their mates with both emphasis on social power and position; they also rely heavily on emotional qualities and trustworthiness (right brain-subjective functioning).

Similarly, it has been discovered that, the activation regions associated with intense romantic love were mostly on the right side of the brain (subjective functioning), while the activation regions associated with facial attractiveness were mostly on the left (objective functioning).

Furthermore, researchers have been able to identify as specific brain pathways that are involved in the human behavioral ‘attraction system’. When romantic partners are shown photos of their loved one, the main areas of activity is the dopaminergic reward pathways in the brain – which are the brainstem right ventral tegmental area and right postero-dorsal body of the caudate nucleus. And by the way, the caudate nucleus helps to direct one’s actions toward attaining one’s goals.

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Sources: Reward, Motivation and Emotion Systems Associated with Early-Stage Intense Romantic Love Journal of Neurophysiology 94: 327-337, 2005 Romantic Love: A Mammalian Brain System for Mate Choice Royal Society of Philosophical Transactions Volume 361, Number 1476 / December 29, 2006 Romantic Love: An fMRI Study of a Neural Mechanism for Mate Choice Journal of Comparative Neurology 2005 Dec 5;493(1):58-62

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