We all know that falling in love... messes with your head, to say the least. But what does it actually do to your brain? In a nutshell, a lot.
After scanning the brains of 100 students, researchers found differences in brain activity between 3 different groups:
- Those who were in love
- Those who had recently broken up with someone they loved, the researchers classified them as "ended love", lol.
- Those who weren't in love and had never be in love... which is a little bit sad
As The Telegraph explained:
"Those from the 'in love' category showed increased activity in several areas of the brain. Including in parts that deal with reward, motivation, and emotion regulation, as well as in the social cognition network. The amount of activity in some parts positively correlated with the duration of love for the in love group. For the 'ended love' group, the longer they had been out of love, the lower the amount of activity detected in these areas of the brain."
Falling in love isn't as abstract a concept as I thought (thanks google). Romance corresponds to a specific mix of chemicals in your brain and body, among them adrenaline, dopamine, and norepinephrine, so when someone says to you "stop thinking with your d*ck" now you have an actual reason to feel that way around your crush.
And that feeling of obsession when you start a new relationship? Well, love also seems to lower serotonin levels, a symptom that's common in people with OCD. This chemical cocktail gives way to another one as a relationship moves from its initial, lovestruck phase into one of deeper understanding. Which may explain the "intense love" at first... and then you just stop caring about farting in front of your girlfriend.
Love always had the leading role in poems, songs, theaters, and movies. We always placed love as the purest feeling you can have, and that may be true but thanks to the neurological research, now we know we're tecnitechnically just high.
Hey what up? I'm kinda new on this so any advice would really help me out.
Sources:
Images were taken from Pixabay.
Wait a minute...students are not full-cats, I mean humans. What about more mature love, the one that gains true value when "things get hard"? You humans are so used to trow away instead of repairing. Think about it for a sec at the role ego plays.