Some believe in love at first sight, some think it is nothing more than literary trope. But if you were looking for a scientific argument to believe in it, researchers have come up with numbers ― it takes a fraction of a second to fall in love.
A team of researchers from Syracuse University has found that when a person falls in love, 12 areas of the brain work in tandem to release euphoria-inducing chemicals such as dopamine, oxytocin, adrenaline and vasopression. The love feeling also affects sophisticated cognitive functions, such as mental representation, metaphors and body image.
The team, led by Professor Stephanie Ortigue, also found that falling in love can elicit not only the same euphoric feeling as using cocaine, but also affects intellectual areas of the brain.
Ortigue, an assistant professor of psychology and an adjunct assistant professor of neurology, both in the College of Arts and Sciences at Syracuse University, and her team worked with another group of researchers from West Virginia University and a university hospital in Switzerland.
There are other things that the researchers found. Unconditional love, like that between a mother and a child, is sparked by the common and different brain areas, including the middle of the brain. On the other hand, passionate love is sparked by the reward part of the brain, and also associative cognitive brain areas that have higher-order cognitive functions, such as body image.
Their study, titled The Neuroimaging of Love, has been published in the Journal of Sexual Medicine.
Via: digitaljournal.com Image: Salvatore Vuono/FreeDigitalPhotos.net
