Terminology and DefinitionsAffects: The umbrella term for the central

aspect of humanity including drives, motivations, emotions, feelings

Emotions: Actions and movements, many of them public, visible to others as they occur in the face, in the voice and in specific behaviors

Feelings: always hidden, unseen to anyone except its rightful owner, the most private property of the organism in whose brain they occur.

(Damasio, 2003, P. 16-26)

What is love? Psychologists are still debating whether love is an emotion,

( McManamy, 2008; Fisher, 2004; Sweeney, 2009)

According to Helen Fisher, love is a drive and motivation which is made possible by brain chemistry and other brain reward center activities, (Fisher, 2004, Parker, 2005).

Love is about rewards and the motivation to seek rewards, (Parker, 2005).

There are three types (or stages) of love, each has distinct purpose and brain activity, (Sweeney, 2009, Fisher, 2004)

What is love?A short cut that links to Helen Fisher’s video

lecture

http://www.ted.com/talks/helen_fisher_studies_the_brain_in_love.html

Stages (types) of LoveSexual: First stage of love Love registers through

recognition. Attraction: Second stage

Truly become love struck Emotion taking over thinking

Attachment: Forming bonds Planning and working toward

future family

Brain in love (by image)

Brain in love (by image)The fact that the raphe nucleus region of our brain literally rewards us with a shot of the lovely calming hormone, serotonin, may be news. Hormones produced by the ventral pallidum relate to attachment and reduced stress, a feel good, all is well part of the love bonding. The VTA, ( ventral tegmental) works like a banana split for a job well done - a reward system in the brain, making dopamine and sending it to different areas of the brain

http://www.goodreads.com/story/show/35559-valentine-s-day-the-science-of-romance

Brain in love (by image)Love is any of a number of emotions and experiences related to a sense of strong affection and attachment. The word love can refer to a variety of different feelings, states, and attitudes, ranging from generic pleasure to intense interpersonal attraction.

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Chemical_basis_of_love.png

Brain in Love (by image)The chemicals that race around in our brain when we're in love serve several purposes, and the primary goal is the continuation of our species. Those chemicals are what make us want to form families and have children. Once we have children, those chemicals change to encourage us to stay together to raise those children. So in a sense, love really is a chemical addiction that occurs to keep us reproducing.

http://nwprthomblog.blogspot.com/2008_08_01_archive.html

Brain in love (by image)

These brain scans show that maternal and romantic love share similar activated and deactivated areas in the brain.http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/cosmicvariance/2010/02/

Brain in love (by image)Activation of the brain’s ventral tegmental area in longterm partners suggests that romantic love can persist. (Brain image courtesy of Stony Brook State University of New York and Albert Einstein College of Medicine) http://www.dana.org/news/

brainwork/detail.aspx?id=14410

Brain in love (by image)

A new study suggests that an area of the brain known as the caudate is associated with passion. The caudate gathers and processes information from different circuitries while in love.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/31/health/psychology/31love.html

Neurological Pathways of Love (By function)

Sensory association--Presence of love-triggering stimulant

Triggering induction—AdmygdalaExecution--ventromedial prefrontal cortext,

motor cortext and cingulate, hypothalamusEmotional state--Chemical release into

bloodstream: oxytocin and vasopressin, dopamine and serotonin

(Damasio, 2003, p. 63-64)

Neurological Pathways of Love (By stage)

The sexual stage:

Driven by sex hormones in men and women—testosterone and estrogen, respectively.

Brain activities are concentrated in the hippocampus.

Male and female brains show some interesting differences, (to be discussed later).

Neurological Pathways of Love (By stage)The Attraction stage:

Three main neurotransmitters are involved: Adrenaline: excites and motivates love behavior Dopamine: desires and rewards love actions Serotonin: maintaining rewarding feelings of

pleasure

Activities concentrated in the caudate nucleue, putamen, insula, anterior and the cerebellum.

Neurological Pathways of Love (By stage)

The attachment stage:Two major hormones involved in this stage:

Oxytocin: deepens the feelings of attachment, increases levels of trust and cements bond between mother the child in addition to husband and wife.

Vasopressin: prevents partner preference and promotes stable pair-bonding behavior to ensure reproduction (the prairie voles experiement).

Brain activities are concentrated in the ventral palladium, posterior pituitary gland, the amygdale.

Male and female brains in LoveFemale:

Release of estrogen Goes through

bloodstream then back to the brain

Oxytocin is present for mother-child bonding

The ventromedial hypothalamus controls female copulation

Memory circuits to help evaluation trustable provider and protector.

Male: Release of testosterone The medal preoptic area is

big twice as in the female brain

Vasopressin is present for pair-bonding

The medial preoptic controls copulation

Integration of visual stimuli to enable sizing up sex mate—”man trance”

Interesting facts about love: Neurologically, there maybe a “build-in” post-attachment phase in the love

scene—the detachment stage when endorphin receptors lose their heightened levels of sensitivity and the person who seeks novelty would leave the marriage., (Sweeney, 2009, p. 225).

While love activates the brain’s reward circuitry to motivate mate seeking behavior while it deactivates parts of the pre-frontal cortex to discourage evaluation the critical social assessment, (Parker, 2005).

The brain shows no consistent pattern of emotional activation in areas that govern emotions, but there is consistent activation in the areas that control motivation, (Parker, 2005)

Romantic love happens on the right side of the brain while facial attraction happens on the left side, Parker, 2005).

Interesting facts about love The more often a man holds and cares for a baby, the more his brain aligns

with the role of fatherhood, (Brizendine, 2010).

The male brain is more receptive to closer bonds, it is also more sensitive to loneliness. That is why after losing a spouse, men fare much worse than women, (Brizendine, 2010).

Low serotonin explain the obsessive thinking attached to romantic love, just like those in Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, (Fisher, 2004)

Man-trance is the behavior of the glazed eye look when men see breasts. Although that behavior has annoyed many wives, now brain research evidence suggests that it is hard wired in a male brain, (Brizendine, 2010).

Maternal and romantic love share a common and crucial evolutionary purpose as well as brain pathways, (Parker, 2005).

According to Psychology Professor Arthur Aron from the State University of New York:

This is an effective way to fall in love:

1.Find a complete stranger2.Reveal to each other intimate details about your lives for 30 minutes3.Then, stare deeply into each other’s eye without talking from 4 minutes

Professor Aron reported that many of his couples in the experiment felt deeply attracted to each after the 34 minutes. Some got married later

According to Professor Arthur Aron of the State University of New York:

A. Psychologists have shown that it takes between 90 seconds and 4 minutes

B. Research has shown that falling in love has little to say to do with what is said, rather:

55% has to do with body language 38% has to do with the tone and speed of their voice Only 7% has to do with what they say.

http://www.youramazingbrain.org/lovesex/sciencelove.htm

Reference (Annotated):Brizendine, L. (2010). Love, sex and the male brain. Retrieved 7-30-2010 from:

http://www.cnn.com/2010/OPINION/03/23/brizendine.male.brain/index.htmlIn this interesting report, the author used the latest brain love research to explain male sexual and love behavior. She analyzed many frequently seen and much misunderstood male behaviors . It is interesting and thought provoking.

Damasio, A.R. (2003). Looking for Spinoza: Joy, Sorrow and the Feeling Brain. New York:

Harcourt Books, Inc. This is a classic scholarly book on the feeling brain and human behavior. The author was able to clearly and

concisely define some terms that were historically defied scientific analysis and investigation, such as emotion and feeling. From there, with solid scientific evidence, the author compared and contrast how emotions and feelings affect and manifest in human behavior. At the end, the author demonstrated how emotions such as joy and love eventually lead to the more deeply seated feelings.

Fisher, H. (2004). Biology: your brain in love. Retrieved 7-28-2010 from: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,993160,00.htmlDr. Fisher described in detail her hypothesis about human love and how her well-designed research helped to separate facts from myths. She described her scientific discoveries of how love being a neurological drive not an emotion.

Reference (Annotated):Kolb, B. & Whishaw I. (2006). An Introduction to Brain and Behavior.

New York: Worth Publishers.The authors used their rich and in-depth neurological knowledge to explain a full range of human brain and behavior, including anatomy of the human brain and the workings in human functions. There is a chapter devoted to hormones and human sexuality.

McManamy, J. (2008). The Brain in Love and Lust. Retrieved 7-30-2010 from Http://www.mcmanweb.com

John McManamy is a psychologist-anthropologist. In this article, he took a scientific look at the mating behavior s among the birds and the bees and humans. Based on his own and other researchers’ data, such as Helen Fisher, he offered convincing explanations of human mating behavior including male and female differences.

Parker, R. (2005). Love Deactivates Areas for Fear, Planning, Critical Socail Assessment. In FuturePundit: Brain Love Archives. Retrieved 8-2-2010 from Class Reading List, Week 7.Very interesting read about scientific findings in the activated and deactivated brain areas which clearly explains the passionate attachment while mindless decisions that are made while a person is in love. It also shows with evidence that maternal and romantic love share not only similar evolutionary purpose but also similar brain pathways.

Reference: (Annotated)Parker, R. Romantic love seen as motivation or drive

rather than emotional state. In FuturePundit: Brain Love Archives. Retrieved 8-2-2010, from: Class assigned reading, week 7.

Convincingly argued with evidence that love is a motivation and a drive, rather than an emotion as commonly believed. Based on the information on oxytocin and vasopressin, the author suggested that there might be a chemical solution to the divorce epidemic in the world. Thought-provoking ideas!

Sweeney, M. (2009). Brain: The Complete Mind. New York: National Geographic Society.

This is a textbook where in Chapter 7, human emotions including love and joy are explained in scientific terms and neurological workings of love and

joy are presented.