Love and Neurobiology: Not So Strange Bedfellows :: Biology Essays Research Papers

Love and Neurobiology Not So Strange Bedfellows The moment you give way in your heart this extraordinary thing called love and feel the depth, the delight, the ecstasy of it, you will discover that for you the world is transformed. -J. Krishnamurti Love is one of lifes great mysteries. People tolerate and build their lives around love. For many tribe, love, or the quest to find love, is a reason to get out of bed in the morning. Love is arguably the most overwhelming of all emotions. Many ideals and religions consider the bond of love sacred. But, why do people fall in love? Is romantic love an enigma, or can it be reduced to the presence of certain chemicals and neurotransmitters within the brain at a given time? In the hit movie Roxanne, Steve Martin plays an articulate, put-together rouse chief. However, when he falls in love with Roxanne, he acts crazy and performs dangerous acrobatics on her balcony in an attempt to earn her love. In Titanic, the two lovebirds lay on the li ne it all in a vein attempt to pursue their love. And, in Shakespeares classic, Romeo and Juliet, the love struck Venetians deny their families and take their own lives in the name of love. What causes this acting(prenominal) insanity that most everyone encounters at some point in his or her life? Many believe that love is spontaneous and inexplicable, however many neurobiologists disagree. They balk by the idea that the brain causes all behavior, even love. The scientific definition of love is having stimulation that one desires (5). Recent research by two British neurologists concludes that love is linked to certain brain activities. By conducting tests using a magnetic resonance imager, the scientists measured brain occupation in 17 people while they were viewing a picture of their loved one, and while they were viewing a photo of a friend of the same sex as their lover. When the individuals teach the picture of the person they love, clear activity occurs in four regions of t he brain that were not active when the image of the friend was present. The media insula, which is responsible for instinctual feelings, and the anterior cingulate, which acts in repartee to euphoria-inducing drugs, such as cocaine, are the two areas of the cortex stimulated by pictures of a lover. The striatum, that is activated when we are rewarded and the prefrontal cortex also increase their activity when shown the same picture.