[troutman]

Love is in the Brain


http://theness.com/neurologicablog/i...-in-the-brain/

Evolutionary changes to your brain’s hardwiring and chemistry have spared you the tedious task of performing a biological assessment of potential mates. Rather, you just have an automatic feeling – an attraction – that is largely based upon a cold subconscious calculus of breeding and life success. You find yourself thinking obsessively about a good mating prospect. You may feel giddy just by being in their presence. The mere sight of them gives you a pleasurable spike of dopamine.

This crazy chemical in love phase will last about 9 months (for most people – the occasional “swan” may last much longer), long enough for longer term attachment mechanisms to take effect. This is also long enough for there to be a high probability of bringing children into the mix, forming other (perhaps even more powerful) chemical attachments.

The scientific view of love and romance can seem anything but romantic, and we can’t even let you have the scientific explanation without pointing out our current uncertainty and the need for more research. The fact is – love and romance are biological/neurological phenomena. They are being studied and we are slowly building a reductionist picture of exactly how and why we feel and act the way we do.

This view, however, is not incompatible with romance. It is a rationalist romantic view. Understanding biology is not inconsistent with embracing and even reveling in the human condition. Feelings of love and attraction are not diminished at all by an understanding of the possible evolutionary advantages of those feelings, or the underlying brain chemistry, any more then they are enhanced by ascribing those feeling to fate or magic.