Researches
have found that the way our brains respond to rejection from love,
actually has an evolutionary basis. Helen E. Fisher, a biological
anthropologist at Rutgers University who studies love said, “The
brain circuitry for romantic love evolved millions of years ago, to
enable our ancestors to focus their mating energy on just one person
at a time and start that mating process. And when you've been
rejected in love, you have lost life's greatest prize, which is a
mating partner. This brain system becomes activated probably to help
you try to win this person back so you focus on them and crave them
and try to get them back.”
The
experiment consisted of 15 college students who had recently gone
through a break-up. All 15 participants had to take the Passionate
Love Scale test which psychologists use to measure the intensity of
romantic feelings. Each of the subjects had to look at a photograph
of their ex and were asked to think about events they had gone
through with their ex's. Then each subject was asked to look at a
neutral image of a familiar person, anyone in their lives they know.
This part allowed for the subject to erase the feelings they had when
looking at the picture of their former love.
This
is what the experiment found: Viewing their former loved one
stimulated a region of the brain called the ventral tegmental area,
involved in motivation and reward. Previous work has found this
region is also active in people who are madly in love. This makes
sense, because “Whether you're happily in love or whether you're
unhappily in love, you're still in love" (Fisher).
Brain
regions known as the nucleus accumbens and orbitofrontal/prefrontal
cortex were also activated. These regions are known to be associated
with intense cocaine addiction and cigarette addiction. There
was also increased activity in the brain's insular cortex and the
anterior cingulated, regions associated with physical pain and
distress.
Unlike other addictions that need different sorts of medication, hospital visits, or a months stay at rehab to cure, only time can cure a broken heart. “The more time that had passed since the breakup, the less activity there was in a brain region associated with attachment,” Fisher stated. Love can either be one of the greatest, most special, most amazing experience people go through, other's not so much, but once we've encountered that complicated yet oh so wonderful feeling called love, there is no doubt that most of us will want to stay in love or find another one to love.
Unlike other addictions that need different sorts of medication, hospital visits, or a months stay at rehab to cure, only time can cure a broken heart. “The more time that had passed since the breakup, the less activity there was in a brain region associated with attachment,” Fisher stated. Love can either be one of the greatest, most special, most amazing experience people go through, other's not so much, but once we've encountered that complicated yet oh so wonderful feeling called love, there is no doubt that most of us will want to stay in love or find another one to love.
Here is a video where Helen Fisher talks about love being an addiction:
It’s almost as if love should be a medical diagnosis. But it should if you really look at how it affects an individual socially, psychologically, and physiologically. I think people don’t realize how much being in love really affects you especially when you lose that person who you love. Whether it’s to death, mate poaching, or the other person feel out of love, loosing someone you love can really break you. I have seen and heard of people who, as a result, become severely depressed to the point where they become ill, commit suicide or homicide, physically abuse others, and lose their jobs, friends, and family. Love is really an interesting topic because it involves so much.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you. Love is definitely like a roller coaster ride. One moment your on top of the world and then your thrown through loops twists and turns. Some people cannot handle the ride and it really can break you of you're not careful.
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