The natural human desire to make love today has become the subject of the closest study and the most heated discussions. What is more in it — uncontrolled physiological impulses or our conscious desire? Neuroscientists and psychotherapists are looking for an answer to this question.
One of the modern points of view says: our love experiences and sexual desires are just biochemical processes that are determined by the innate human need for procreation. In sentimental terms, it is quite practical: why worry and waste mental strength on romantic impulses if they do not depend on us and are caused by a chain reaction at the hormonal and neural levels?
Yet the opinion of scientists is not so unambiguous. “The feeling of love is really driven by a person’s innate desire to procreate,” says Sergey Savelyev, Doctor of Biological Sciences. — And our brain controls it, the main task of which is to ensure the transfer of the genome to new generations. He «forces» us to behave in such a way as to achieve this goal.
“Studies of the nervous system show that our sexual impulses and romantic hobbies are partly determined by the biological need to procreate,” agrees psychotherapist Elena Smirnova. — But in how each of us experiences love feelings, which partner turns out to be the most attractive for us, to what extent we are able to experience pleasure or control our sexual impulses, the characteristics of our personal history, upbringing, parental “covenants” play a leading role.
Scientists have identified the «brain of love» — several areas that are responsible for love experiences and long-term relationships
Why we suffer from unhappy love, why it is difficult for us to build long-term relationships, or, conversely, why we are able to experience tenderness and affection for another person — these are questions for psychologists. Neuroscientists are unlikely to be able to answer them.”
So what about our feelings is determined by our personal history, and what is universal and common to all of us?
The secrets of the brain in love
Why, when falling in love, we are able to think only about a dear person? Why does the mere mention of him excite us so much? It seems that neuroscientists, thanks to brain scanning, have managed to get closer to answering this question.
“The fact that there is a single system in the brain that controls our feelings and emotions was first suggested in the late 30s of the last century by the American neuropathologist James Papets,” says psychophysiologist Alexander Chernorizov. “These structures were later called the “limbic system” or “emotional brain.” Today we also know that these areas of the brain are not only «responsible» for our emotional reaction to a certain situation, but are also associated with the processes of memory and attention.
Modern scientists have gone even further: they have identified the «brain of love» — several zones localized in the limbic system that are responsible for love experiences and long-term relationships. The experiments of neuroscientists Andreas Bartels and Semir Zeki from University College London (UK) involved young people «madly in love» with each other.
During the brain scan, they looked at the photographs. Among them were photos of old friends — no special reaction. But at the sight of a picture of a loved one, four areas of the brain became active each time, which had nothing to do with sexual arousal. British neuroscientists have found that when we see an object of love, neural mechanisms come into play, similar to those that give rise to a feeling of euphoria caused by drug use. Does this mean that love has a narcotic effect?
Love has a narcotic effect, since the emotions associated with it are accompanied by the production of such substances.
“In a sense, this is so,” says Alexander Chernorizov. — The brain has a “pleasure system”: the receptors included in its structures react to drugs and cause a feeling of euphoria. However, under natural conditions, these receptors respond to substances (enkephalins, endorphins and dynorphins) produced by the brain itself in order to “positively reinforce” beneficial actions for the body. We can say that love has a narcotic effect, since the emotions associated with it are accompanied by the production of such substances.
Without drawing such far-reaching conclusions, Andreas Bartels and Semir Zeki argue that the «brain of love» is responsible for the feeling of love. And only for him. “What we have been able to do can be considered the first step in the neurological understanding of romantic love — a feeling that is different from simple sexual desire,” they enthusiastically declare.
Love is blind?
Scientists are getting closer to unraveling the well-known maxim “love is blind”. In new experiments, Andreas Bartels and Semir Zeki proved that romantic love, by increasing the activity of certain areas of the brain, suppresses others, which are responsible, in particular, for critical thinking, social evaluation of other people and negative emotions.
When they saw a photo of a person to whom the subjects had an emotional attachment, they lost the ability to think critically. Interestingly, the scientists saw a similar pattern in the behavior of mothers looking at pictures of their own children. Andreas Bartels considers it biologically important: it allows us to overlook the shortcomings of a loved one (and our own children), which in an evolutionary context is extremely important for the survival of the species.
Psychiatrist Serge Stoleru and his colleagues from the French National Institute of Health and Medical Research observed the work of the brain at the moment when the participants in the experiment looked at erotic photos. They saw that certain areas of the brain «light up» while others «go out.»
Serge Stolerou explains this effect by saying that «when our sexual desires are liberated, other desires and feelings are suppressed.» This scientific argument may explain why we sometimes lack discernment in choosing a partner and, contrary to the voice of reason, surrender to the power of a passionate sexual impulse.
Love and love
Most researchers agree that the different stages of love—falling in love and long-term attachment—are distinct neurological and biochemical phenomena.
“We cannot give ourselves a full account of how strongly hormones affect the emergence of a love interest,” says Alexander Chernorizov. “Individual differences between people in their hormonal status largely determine the intensity of feelings and, as a result, the success of our novel.”
Our dependence on the «chemistry of love» is further aggravated by the presence of specific hormones of love — sexual odors, pheromones. They — a universal ancient mechanism for attracting a sexual partner — are secreted by the sweat cells of the body (both men and women) and act on specific receptors of the olfactory system, sexually arousing the partner.
Thoughts and desires
But be that as it may, it seems that in love, the characteristics of the psyche of a particular person always take precedence over biology. It is impossible to explain why a love affair was successful or unsuccessful, relying only on the chemistry of hormones. Scanning does not answer the question of what makes each of us unique.
“Not a single researcher can boast that he has penetrated the secret of desire — love or sexual,” says Alexander Chernorizov. Until now, neither our passions nor our thoughts have been deciphered by the total electrical activity of the brain. The most modern methods of visualizing the activity of the human brain are powerless here.
Understanding how the processes occurring in the brain correlate with our feelings, thoughts, desires is directly related to the solution of the «damned» problem of psychology — the relationship between the brain and the psyche. And at present there is only a philosophical, but not an experimental understanding of it.