“How on earth are you ever going to explain in terms of chemistry and physics so important a biological phenomenon as first love?”
Albert Einstein
Almost everyone knows what love is, they know it when they see it, and they know it when they feel it, however, as much as we have all felt love, an all-encompassing definition still eludes us. This is because love is so complex. Love exists in many shades and forms, the love of a parent and child, the love of a sibling, or the love of two romantic partners to name just a few. Helen Fisher (2004) hypothesised three related and yet very separate brain systems designed to deal with romantic love;
- lust, sexual desire
- attraction; passionate love, romantic love, obsession
- attachment; companionate love
(Fisher, Aron, Mashek, Li, & Brown, 2002)
Although in its infancy, scientists have been able to increasingly demonstrate through their research that the brain mediates behaviour, and that the two cannot be separated. We feel love, just as we feel fear, happiness or anger, because a deluge of neurochemical events take place in the brain that creates those feelings within us, each emotion with its own neurological signature (Ward, 2012). Neuroscience is the scientific study of the nervous system, and the relationships between brain activity and behaviour. Recent technological advances have enabled scientists to begin examining the neural pathways, and the endocrine system related to the emotional-motivational system of love. This website will review scientific evidence into the link between the brain and behaviour, providing insight into why people feel the way they do when they are in love. Current research into each of the hypothesised stages of love identified by Fisher (2004) will be critically examined, including the role of the endocrine and neurological systems and their associated involvement, and in the case of attraction and attachment, demonstrate an overlap in these systems. It will be argued that behaviour is not regulated by neurological and hormonal influences but merely mediated, and therefore, humans possess the ability to intentionally inhibit behavioural reactions if they so desire.
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I Love you With all my Brain. 