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(edit) P.S -- Maybe I should add a disclaimer, this post does contain sexual references if you are too young or don't want to read about that.
Love is one of my pet hates when people define it or use it in a context that makes it a seperate "force". As if Love is an entity that floats around and affects us. Some seem to believe love is supernatural.
Well, here is a scientific (well for the most part - I am no scientist) explanation of love.
It is just copy/paste of articles you can find by Googling "Science of Love".
As you will read, love is real, and is explainable by science.
I originally posted this on another forum, but I thought it was relevant and had/have no intention of trolling -- hopefully this sparks further discussion.
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Helen Fisher of Rutgers University proposes there are 3 stages to love.
Lust, Attraction and Attachment.
Stage 1 or Lust, is driven by sex hormones. Testosterone and Oestrogen. When in lust, their levels are increased.
Stage 2 or Attraction, is a combination of 3 different chemicals: Adrenaline, Dopamine and Seratonin.
Stage 3 or Attachment, may be a combination of two different hormones; Oxytocin and Vasopressin.
Quoted from Helen Fisher:
Read it all here: The science of loveAdrenaline
The initial stages of falling for someone activates your stress response, increasing your blood levels of adrenalin and cortisol. This has the charming effect that when you unexpectedly bump into your new love, you start to sweat, your heart races and your mouth goes dry.
Dopamine
Helen Fisher asked newly ‘love struck’ couples to have their brains examined and discovered they have high levels of the neurotransmitter dopamine. This chemical stimulates ‘desire and reward’ by triggering an intense rush of pleasure. It has the same effect on the brain as taking cocaine!
Fisher suggests “couples often show the signs of surging dopamine: increased energy, less need for sleep or food, focused attention and exquisite delight in smallest details of this novel relationship” .
Serotonin
And finally, serotonin. One of love's most important chemicals that may explain why when you’re falling in love, your new lover keeps popping into your thoughts.
Oxytocin
Oxytocin is a powerful hormone released by men and women during orgasm.
It probably deepens the feelings of attachment and makes couples feel much closer to one another after they have had sex. The theory goes that the more sex a couple has, the deeper their bond becomes.
Oxytocin also seems to help cement the strong bond between mum and baby and is released during childbirth. It is also responsible for a mum’s breast automatically releasing milk at the mere sight or sound of her young baby.
Diane Witt, assistant professor of psychology from New York has showed that if you block the natural release of oxytocin in sheep and rats, they reject their own young.
Conversely, injecting oxytocin into female rats who’ve never had sex, caused them to fawn over another female’s young, nuzzling the pups and protecting them as if they were their own.
Vasopressin
Vasopressin is another important hormone in the long-term commitment stage and is released after sex.
Vasopressin (also called anti-diuretic hormone) works with your kidneys to control thirst. Its potential role in long-term relationships was discovered when scientists looked at the prairie vole.
Prairie voles indulge in far more sex than is strictly necessary for the purposes of reproduction. They also – like humans - form fairly stable pair-bonds.
When male prairie voles were given a drug that suppresses the effect of vasopressin, the bond with their partner deteriorated immediately as they lost their devotion and failed to protect their partner from new suitors.
Another source:
Oxytocin, chemical addiction and the science of love
Lust, of course, involves a craving for sex. Jim Pfaus, a psychologist at Concordia University, in Montreal, says the aftermath of lustful sex is similar to the state induced by taking opiates. A heady mix of chemical changes occurs, including increases in the levels of serotonin, oxytocin, vasopressin and endogenous opioids (the body's natural equivalent of heroin). “This may serve many functions, to relax the body, induce pleasure and satiety, and perhaps induce bonding to the very features that one has just experienced all this with”, says Dr Pfaus.
So there you have it, that is love and it is real. It might make it a little less romantic than some people would like to think, but personally the fact that this all goes on inside our heads and bodies without us even being aware of it is just as (and even more) amazing than thinking it is anything else.
Our bodies rule.
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Originally Posted by Jamie Poole
