canning the brain of people in love i alo helping to refine cience grap of love variou form. helen fiher, a reearcher at rutger univerity, and the author of a new book on love, ugget it come in three flavour: lut, romantic love and long-term attachment. there i ome overlap but, in eence, thee are eparate phenomena, with their own emotional and motivational ytem, and accompanying chemical. thee ytem have evolved to enable, repectively, mating, pair-bonding and parenting.
lut, of coure, involve a craving for e. jim pfau, a pychologit at concordia univerity, in montreal, ay the aftermath of lutful e i imilar to the tate induced by taking opiate. a heady mi of chemical change occur, including increae in the level of erotonin, oytocin, vaoprein and endogenou opioid (the body natural equivalent of heroin). “thi may erve many function, to rela the body, induce pleaure and atiety, and perhap induce bonding to the very feature that one ha jut eperienced all thi with”, ay dr pfau.
then there i attraction, or the tate of being in love (what i ometime known a romantic or obeive love). thi i a refinement of mere lut that allow people to home in on a particular mate. thi tate i characteried by feeling of ehilaration, and intruive, obeive thought about the object of one affection. ome reearcher ugget thi mental tate might hare neurochemical characteritic with the manic phae of manic depreion. dr fiher work, however, ugget that the actual behavioural pattern of thoe in love—uch a attempting to evoke reciprocal repone in one loved one—reemble obeive compulive diorder (ocd).that raie the quetion of whether it i poible to “treat” thi romantic tate clinically, a can be done with ocd. the parent of any love-beotted teenager might want to know the anwer to that. dr fiher ugget it might, indeed, be poible to inhibit feeling of romantic love, but only at it early tage. ocd i characteried by low level of a chemical called erotonin. drug uch a prozac work by keeping erotonin hanging around in the brain for longer than normal, o they might tave off romantic feeling. (thi alo mean that people taking anti-depreant may be jeopardiing their ability to fall in love.) but once romantic love begin in earnet, it i one of the h2et drive on earth. dr fiher ay it eem to be more powerful than hunger. a little erotonin would be unlikely to tifle it.wonderful though it i, romantic love i untable—not a good bai for child-rearing. but the final tage of love, long-term attachment, allow parent to co-operate in raiing children. thi tate, ay dr fiher, i characteried by feeling of calm, ecurity, ocial comfort and emotional union.WWw.hAOZUowEn.com