FAQs on Science of Love

Love has been defined and interpreted in countless ways. However, most rationalise it as God's gift and divine, just as they treated moon before they could understand that it is just another planet or a satellite. It is just a 'chemical locha' as propounded in one of the Bollywood films, as one of my friends reminded. I have attempted to compile existing understanding and extrapolations therefrom.

The attempt is merely to demistify and understand the scientific basis. It does not make it any less fascinating, just as knowing the science of childbirth does not reduce its profoundness as a human experience.

Q: What is love?

Ans: As per Wikipedia, love is any of a number of experiences related to a sense of strong affection and attachment . It can refer to a variety of different feelings, states, and attitudes, ranging from generic pleasure ("I loved that meal") to intense interpersonal attraction ("I love my boyfriend"). In abstract sense, love is a combined feeling of bonding, caring for the other beyond self.

Q: Why does one chase romantic love?

Ans: Brain mapping shows that early stage intense romantic love activates the same sub-cortical reward regions that are rich with dopamine and are associated with the motivations to win rewards in contests.

Q: Is attractiveness of the beloved necessary for romantic love?

Ans: No. Activation regions of romance and attractiveness are on the right and the left side respectively. Romantic love is distinct from, though inter-related to sex-drive for which attractiveness may be a stimulant as a part of natural mate selection process.

Q: What is love-at-first sight?

Ans: Love-at-first sight is a basic mammalian response to speed up the mating process.

Q: Does love evolve?

Ans: As per Dr. Helen Fisher of Rutgers University, NJ, The USA, there are three stages. First is lust stage, in which a male or female notices and chooses a mate. Second stage is that of attraction. The third and the final stage is attachment. Different chemicals come into play at each of these stages. Testosterones and estrogens promote aggressiveness and have a role in the first stage.

Dopamine plays an active role in the second stage creating a craving and a feeling of ‘not being able to get enough of each other’. This leads to day-dreaming and a partial detachment from the reality.

Another chemical produced during this phase is Serotonin. Serotonin produces light mood and happy feeling. Serotonin combines with dopamine to promote fantasizing and a partial disconnect with the reality. It is partial because one is able to see ‘beautiful things’ like flowers, butterflies, etc., but may not be able to see a precipice in front. Wikipedia says that chemically, the serotonin effects of being in love have a similar chemical appearance to obessessive-compulsive disorder. This could explain why a person in love cannot think of anyone else, people say that love is blind.

Attachment is the third stage of love. There are two key chemicals in this process, oxytocin and vasopressin. Oxytocin creates emotional bonding and physical contractions in child birth and orgasm. It also creates bonding of mother with child during breast feeding.

This bonding makes it difficult to let go of the relationship and triggers production of dopamine etc., which, in turn creates desperation for uniting with the absent partner. However, with the passage of time, as the contact dwindles, these chemicals get depleted and there is a realization and acceptance of break.

Vassopressin strengthens attachment as the relationship grows older. If there is no reinforcement, production of vasopressin also goes down, slowly reducing attachment.

Q: Why does the heart get broken in the event of unrequited love?

Ans: Heart does not appear to have any role in matters of love; a broken brain would have been more appropriate. Generally people associate brain with thinking processes and, therefore, they had to find an alternative place to associate with feelings.

There is also a chemical associated with the second stage of love, and is called norepinephrine (Norpee in short). When a lover sees or thinks of another, this chemical creates ‘butterfly effect’, in which, there is a rush of emotions creating goose bumps, healthier looking skin tone, increase in pulse rate and heart rate, sweating, etc. This may be the cause of associating love with heart.

In fact, the ubiquitous heart is not the symbol of love as we understand. Any biology student will tell you that heart’s actual shape is different. According to Desmond Morris, much before the advent of ‘missionary position’ in the western world, common love making position was from behind and this so-called symbol of love is actually a representation of ‘female behind’.

Q: What is true love?

Ans: A balance of serotonin, dopamine and norepinephrine counters the negative effects (like continued craving) of each other. This is called true love. There are shades of positivity, longing and This may or may not be accompanied with other chemicals associated with love making, and therefore, true love may not be restricted to stereotypical man-woman relationship.

Q: Is it possible to have platonic love?

Ans: Yes but as it is all about interplay of neurochemicals, there is no guarantee that it may or may not remain so.

Q: Is it possible to 'switch off and on' love medically?

Ans: Successful experiments have been done on animals in the regard.