For centuries poets have written beautifully about both the ecstasy of love and the pain of love lost. “I love thee to the depth and breath and height my soul can reach,” writes Elizabeth Barrett Browning. On the flip side, Pablo Neruda laments, “Love is so short, forgetting is so long.”
But it’s not only poets who are interested in the endlessly fascinating subject of romantic love. Not surprisingly, scientists (who are, after all, also human) also think about love from their unique perspective. Biological anthropologists approach the subject asking a question common to their field: If romantic love exists cross culturally, is there a biological element that contributes to a person’s survival and perpetuation?
The answer appears to be, yes. In an article for the Harvard Mahoney Neuroscience Institute, Scott Edwards draws on groundbreaking research by Helen Fisher in which she analyzed the brain scans of 2,500 college students. Simply looking at photos of people who were special to them caused the students’ brains to activate the regions rich in dopamine (the “feel good” hormone). What’s the significance of this observation? That area, writes Edwards, “is part of what is known as the brain’s reward circuit… This circuit is considered to be a primitive neural network, meaning it is evolutionarily old; it links with the nucleus accumbens. Some of the other structures that contribute to the reward circuit — the amygdala, the hippocampus, and the prefrontal cortex — are exceptionally sensitive to (and reinforcing of) behavior that induces pleasure, such as sex, food consumption, and drug use.” That means, for better or worse, romantic love evidently developed biologically countless millennia ago.
During the early stages of a romantic relationship the overload of hormones can range from exhilarating to terrifying. How does the body and brain handle all this? “When we are falling in love,” Edwards writes, “chemicals associated with the reward circuit flood our brain, producing a variety of physical and emotional responses — racing hearts, sweaty palms, flushed cheeks, feelings of passion and anxiety. Levels of the stress hormone cortisol increase during the initial phase of romantic love, marshaling our bodies to cope with the ‘crisis”’ at hand.”
Beyond the effect that romantic love has relative to the two people falling in love, there are other effects that hint at why romantic love may play such a crucial role in helping humans survive as a species. Human infants take a shockingly long time to become self-sufficient in comparison to other mammals, which helps explain the fundamental need for the various roles that family members play. In addition, as Edwards notes, “Other chemicals at work during romantic love are oxytocin and vasopressin, hormones that have roles in pregnancy, nursing, and mother-infant attachment. Released during sex and heightened by skin-to-skin contact, oxytocin deepens feelings of attachment and makes couples feel closer to one another after having sex. Oxytocin, known also as the love hormone, provokes feelings of contentment, calmness, and security, which are often associated with mate bonding. Vasopressin is linked to behavior that produces long-term, monogamous relationships.”
As everyone who has been in a romantic relationship may attest, the “high” associated with the early days of the relationship change. The positive aspects of this change should not be overlooked. “Love, which began as a stressor (to our brains and bodies, at least), becomes a buffer against stress,” Edwards notes. “Brain areas associated with reward and pleasure are still activated as loving relationships proceed, but the constant craving and desire that are inherent in romantic love often lessen.”
But does that desire need to lessen, and does it lessen for everyone? Happily, the answer is, no. Recent research is indicating that the old flame can be rekindled. That may simply involve recognizing that you’ve gotten into certain habits, and habits can be changed. How? For more on that, see “Rekindling the Romance.”