The science of love (the chemistry of love, romance) Chemistry of Love: Love at first sight

The science of love (the chemistry of love, romance)
Chemistry of Love: Love at first sight

Researchers believe that love at first sight, is not just a cliché. A chemical reaction that can lead to romance can be created when a person first looks at another. A mixture of natural chemicals and hormones may explain why opposites attract, mismatched couples and some success
couples survive the worst situations.

Couples in the following pages show that researchers now know: Romantic, literally, requires a certain chemistry. The Thunderbolt is not apocryphal cliché. Writer Nuna Alberta reports that researchers now know why we view the right person can leave a chemical reaction leading to romance. But what happens then? Why do some succeed while other relationships fizzle? It is perhaps more magic than science. Claudia Glenn Dowling visit with 10 celebrity couples who overcame time and testing: depression, death of a child, cancer, stress of public life. Through it all, their marriage survived - even become stronger. "The need is the thing that holds a marriage together over the long term," said the actor Carroll O'Connor. "If the necessity stop, stop the marriage."

Thirty-one years Commendatory Dana says she has never been the kind of woman men immediately notice. But one night last year, while in a singles bar with friends, she could not keep away the opposite sex. "The guys came to me and getting very close, and I was like, 'Wow!'" The office manager of New York City, now in a committed relationship with one of the men she met that night, attributes its ability to attract him that evening a potion expensive ($ 60 for a tenth of an ounce) called Falling in Love. Manufacturer, cosmetics Philosophy, claims the concoction is laced with pheromones, the odourless molecules suspended in the air, synthesized from chemical secretions of man, which are supposed to enhance the attractiveness. (And yes, it is available in a store near you.)

Bunk? Sniff if you want. Many do. But if one believes is desperately Commendatory remarkably sensitive or sophisticated, one thing is clear: new research in the field of love and attraction shows that romance - long the domain of poets, philosophers and five handkerchief films - can be excluded by both molecules as it is with emotion. In fact, scientists now believe that the impulse that drives us to mate, marry and remain monogamous is not the result of mere social convention: It is a complex mixture of chemicals and natural hormones - Cupid elixirs, if you will - to help us guide the most important decision of life. The physiological component, the researchers say, may help explain some of the mysteries of love: why opposites attract, why so many seemingly incompatible couples succeed, why we are in solidarity with our partners through even the worst of times.

"When you fall in love or lust, it is not only an emotional event," says Theresa Shareware  MD, Masters and Johnson trained author of The Alchemy of Love and Lust. "Hormones in your body, each with a unique contribution, get involved too."

Free will, of course, can not be excluded. If you like redheads, you like redheads. If you're a sucker for a beautiful voice, the man who sings "Night and Day" you have an advantage. But doctors have long known that even the most primitive impulses, lust - the feeling that propels the only door in search of love - a chemical base. It is testosterone, the hormone that creates the basic sexual desire in men and women.

The researchers are now focusing on what happens after a walk on the door and a wide world of possibilities romantic. What are the physical attributes, apart from obviously attract? What is the role pheromones play? When do other brain chemicals to kick start more powerful? Discoveries of the last decade the number of neuroscientists let predict - even for the first time, control, albeit in a limited way - what was once considered uncontrollable love. "We are at the dawn of a new beginning, where people may soon never have to suffer the pain of slings and arrows of love" as rejection, difficulty bonding and disorders attachment, said James H. Fallon, professor of anatomy and neurobiology at the University of California, Irvine, College of Medicine. In 10 years, maybe less, he said, there could be brain chemical nasal sprays to increase the love between a couple. "We're very close. And it is not just happy talk ... we are like children giddy about all the possibilities. "

Indeed, what scientists think they already know about the affairs of the heart is remarkable. To illustrate the results, follow the story of Mike, a fictional Everyman, as he falls in love. One night, Mike, unique, nervously arrives at a party, gets a drink, then scans the room. Science tells us that, unconsciously, he was already noting the size and symmetry of the facial bones of women around him (a recent study by biologists at the University of New Mexico showed that the bone structure is symmetrical appreciated more than anything, because it suggests a lack of unwanted mutations). It also examines the feminine curves, the research shows that men prefer belt 60-80 percent of the size of hips, an indicator, however crude, health and fertility. (Women, for their part, men looking slightly feminized faces - think Leonardo DiCaprio -. Because they seem warmer, softer and more trustworthy) "Judging beauty has a strong evolutionary" , says the University of Texas at Austin psychology professor Devendra Singh. "Here's another person to find if you want your children carry genes for that person."

At the party, Mike unconsciously follows the clues and makes eye contact with a woman, Sue. She smiled. His midbrain - the part that controls the visual and auditory reflexes - News eurotransmitter dopamine, a brain chemical that gives a rush - and the motivation to engage in conversation. As he gets closer, pheromones Mike reach the hypothalamus Sue, causing a "yes, come" look. Why this happens is not clear, but a study conducted at the University of Bern, Switzerland, suggests that people use smell as a possible clue to distinguish genetic similarity in a potential partner - a consideration in the possible prevention of congenital anomalies.

Mike now feels the beat first sexual attraction. His hypothalamus - the brain region that triggers the chemicals responsible for emotion - tells his body to send signals of attraction: His pupils dilate, his heart pumps harder so that his hot face, sweating slightly , which gives the skin a warm glow, oil glands in the scalp statement to create extra shine. At the end of the night, he got his phone number. The next day, the memory of Sue directing his brain to secrete increasing levels of dopamine, which creates a sense of nostalgia that propel it to the phone. He calls. She looks excited. Dopamine released into the base of the forebrain invites the first sensations of pleasure associated with Mike and Sue.

When they meet the next night at a restaurant, his stomach flip-flops and he begins to feel dizzy at the sight of her. He can think of nothing that face, those eyes, that smile, that his brain pathways become intoxicated with high levels of dopamine, norepinephrine (another neurotransmitter) and, in particular, phenylethylamine (PEA) . This cocktail of natural chemicals gives Mike a slight hum, as if he had taken a very low dose of amphetamine (or a high dose of chocolate, another source of PEA). This contributes to almost irrational feelings of attraction - we all have them considered - that begin to dominate his thoughts at work, while he led, as he falls asleep. "This is a great natural," says Anthony Walsh, professor of criminology at Boise State University and author of The Science of Love: Love Agreement and its effects on the mind and body. "Your pupils dilate, your heart pumps, you sweat - this is the same reaction as you would if you were afraid or angry This is the mechanism of fight or flight, except that you do not want to fight or flee. ".

In the following weeks, Mike and Sue relationship deepens. The first night, Mike Sue back to the house, he dims the lights and play some soft music. Chemical oxytocin floods the body. Twenty years ago, oxytocin was considered a female hormone useful only as a trigger for labor contractions and induce lactation. In the 80s, research has found that it is produced in the hypothalamus by men and women, helping to create feelings of compassion and warmth (and the mother and baby bonding after birth and during breastfeeding). As oxytocin surges also Sue, the couple begins to form a bond. Scientists now believe that oxytocin actually strengthens receptors in the brain that produce emotions. Oxytocin increases while still touching, caressing and other stages of sexual intimacy. It can also make it easier to evoke pleasant memories of each other while the other. Mike can think of Sue and experience, in his mind, the way it looks, feels and smells, which will strengthen its relationship with it. (Helen Fisher, Rutgers University anthropologist, conducts research with magnetic resonance imaging to monitor parts of the brain change when we are in love.)

Then comes marriage. Honeymoon. Now what? Fast forward 18 months. At this point, Mike and Sue could not be at a crossroads. Science tells us that 18 months to three years after the first moment of infatuation, it is not unusual for the feelings of the neutrality of his love partner to be ("Why not take out the trash?" Vs "I dream about you all the time "). For many, it could be a chemical explanation. Mixing of dopamine, norepinephrine and PEA is so like a drug, scientists say, it takes higher doses and greater for the same buzz. So after someone has been with someone for a while, his brain stops reacting to chemicals, because he is accustomed. "the brain can not maintain the status s' revved-up, "says Walsh." Since this is the case with any medication, it takes more to make the PEA heart beat. "

Couples with attachments that are sensitive for other reasons (money woes, abuse, irreconcilable differences) and can play - because the tolerance of the organism to PEA decreases rapidly - looking for someone with new who find the thrill of early love. It is more likely, however, engaged couples will moveon that science suggests is the most rewarding and lasting love. Although the rush the same dependency is not involved, the constant physical contact, and not only sex, helps produce endorphins, another brain chemical, and continued high doses of oxytocin. Endorphins calm the mind and kill anxiety. Both chemicals are like natural opiates and help stabilize the torque inducing obstetrician Michel Odent this famous, London Centre Primal Health Research (whose book, The scientificity of Love, will be published this year), called "druglike addiction."

Even in the animal world, neuroscientists have long wondered what prevented prairie voles faithful to one partner, while their cousins, the mountain voles, mater were promiscuous. As it turned out, prairie voles are much more sensitive to the effects of oxytocin. In the experiments, when these receptors are blocked, the animals remain in the home trends of decline. "At present, our knowledge of neuroscience is doubling every two and a half years," said brother Robert, professor of physiology and human sexuality at the University of Michigan Ferris State. "This means that in the last two and a half years, we have learned that all human beings prior to the functioning of the brain." The University of California says Fallon: "While the 90s are a blur for people Neuroscience We all want to be in place 24 hours a day so you do not miss a thing.».

But in the end, love will never pierce the mysteries in a laboratory? Some, like Fallon, say yes. Others, perhaps more of us lucky enough to have experienced true love might think - and hope - to the contrary. Even in this age of advanced science, where you can transplant organs, mapping the human genome and cloning our own offspring, we still do not understand about what, exactly, ignite our spark of life, our souls, our very being. Maybe, maybe, that remains true to the confines of love.