BIOLOGY OF LOVE ( phenomenon of love )

 

Love is a word that comes and goes. But do people really know what it means to love somebody? I mean, from a biological perspective, we're going to be looking at the biology of love.

love is a beautiful and sometimes scary ordeal, I'm not here to talk to you about how to choose the right mate or any of those other valuable topics. I'm a biology nerd. So, let's dissect this thing called love. First of all, let's talk about what happens before the love attraction. You see that guy or that girl across the room and there's something in them that appeals to you. And yes, I literally mean in them that appeals to you. Did you know that each of us have a certain chemical profile when it comes to hormones like estrogen, testosterone, dopamine, and serotonin? we tend to be more attracted to people whose chemical profiles are different from our own chemical profile, but in a way that complements it. Here's an example.

These studies suggest that people who tend to have high levels of testosterone tend to be more attracted to people who tend to have higher levels of estrogen. Isn't that interesting? But let's go a little deeper. Like genes deeper. There are a set of genes that are involved in the immune system called the major histocompatibility complex. Now, if that sounds complicated, you can just remember mhc.

Now, what's interesting is that your mhc profile influences your body odor. And research has shown that you're more likely to seek out a partner who has a very different mhc profile and thus a different body odor than yourself. Not only that, but if a woman is in a relationship with a man who has a very different mhc profile, they tend to be more sexually responsive to that man. And if a woman is with a man whose mhc profile is very similar to her own, not only is  she more likely to be less sexually responsive to him, she's also more likely to be attracted to other men.

 you actually fall in love with someone. What's happening there? You know how they say love is complicated? Well, the biology of love is pretty complicated, too. But let's try to make it simple. When we first fall in love, our brains release a bunch of chemicals, and these chemicals create feelings of pleasure and euphoria. One of the key chemicals involved is dopamine. This is often referred to as the feelgood chemical or the pleasure chemical. It's the same chemical that's released when we eat something amazing when you win a game, and even during sex, it's also involved in addiction.

 So when they say you're addicted to love, I guess it's kind of true. But for real, though, the release of this and other chemicals like norepinephrine, this happens in brain regions called the ventral tagmental area and the caudate nucleus. And what we've seen is that if you do a brain scan in people that are in love while showing them pictures of the person that they're in love with, man, those two regions are just going to light up. And it makes sense because these are the regions that are associated with motivation and reward. It's like love is in itself, its own reward.

 Okay, let's move on. You're in the relationship for a while now, and you're still in love. Studies have shown that over time, the activity in the ventral tegmental area and caudate nucleus, those reward centers, it's going to start to decrease. And we see more activity in areas in the brain that are related to emotion. Two hormones that are involved here are oxytocin and vasopressin.

 Let's look at oxytocin. Oxytocin is known as the cuddle hormone. It's one that's produced in the hypothalamus and released into the bloodstream via the pituitary gland. The release of oxytocin is involved when a woman is trying  to push that baby out during childbirth. And it also plays a significant role in the emotional bonding that can happen with that cute little human. And we know that oxytocin and vasopressin work together in some way to help the kind of bonding behaviors and feelings that are characteristic of what we experience in these longer term loving relationships. They play key roles in formation of social bonds and attachment and forming those loving memories that keep relationships going strong.

And what's very interesting is that they help to create a positive feedback loop. You have a positive experience with your partner, these hormones get released, which increases the feelings of pleasure, which releases more hormones, which increases the pleasure even more. And just saying that out loud right now makes me feel some serious feelings for my wife. And I wish I could do, like, a brain scan right now to see what's going going on in this brain of mine. anyways, this just scratches the surface of the biology of love.