More Powerful from Love

The study also revealed that as a romance matures, so does the mind. "We found several brain areas where the strength of neural activity changed with the length of the romance," Brown said. "Everyone knows that relationships are dynamic over time, but we are beginning to track what happens in the brain as a love relationship matures." Love wins The processing of romantic feelings involves a "constellation of neural systems." The researchers -- neuroscientists, anthropologists and social psychologists -- declare love the clear winner versus in terms of its power over the human mind. "Romantic love is one of the most powerful of all human experiences," said study member Helen Fisher, an anthropologist at Rutgers University. "It is definitely more powerful than the drive." Fisher said the study might suggest some of the physiology of stalking behavior. Other studies suggest that up to 40 percent of people who are rejected in love slip into clinical depression, she said. "Rejected men and women in societies around the world sometimes kill themselves or someone else," Fisher said. Animals, too There are hints in the study that romance is not a uniquely human trait. Some of the changes seen with mature romances were in regions of the brain also associated with pair-bonding in prairie voles. Other studies have found that expressions of attraction in a female prairie vole are linked to a 50 percent hike in dopamine activity in the brain region that corresponds to the location where human romance is processed. "These and other data indicate that all mammals may feel attraction to specific partners, and that some of the same brain systems are involved," Fisher said. <<---Back