Time for love Dr. Jones

When you first fall in love, you are not experiencing an emotion, but a motivation or drive, new brain scanning studies have shown.

The early stages of a romantic relationship spark activity in dopamine-rich brain regions associated with motivation and reward. The more intense the relationship is, the greater the activity.

The regions associated with emotion, such as the insular cortex and parts of the anterior cingulate cortex, are not activated until the more mature phases of a relationship, says Helen Fisher, an anthropologist from Rutgers University in New Jersey.

Lo que le da mayor sentido a las palabras de Mr. Reznor...

pero sigamos adelante. Ahora resulta que el personaje de Renee Zellweger en Down with love no estaba tan equivocada despues de todo:


Eating chocolate


Early on in a relationship, the images showed that the brain seems to be very focused on planning and pursuit of pleasurable reward, says Fisher, mediated by regions called the right caudate nucleus and right ventral tegmentum. The same regions become active when a person enjoys the pleasure of eating chocolate, she adds.


y finalmente:

There are some differences between love-struck men and women, says Fisher. Women in love show more emotional activity earlier on in a relationship. They also seem to quiz their memory regions as they look at pictures of their partner, perhaps paying more attention to their past experience with them.

For men, perhaps unsurprisingly, love looks a little more like lust, with extra activity in visual areas that mediate sexual arousal.

The team has since moved on to examining the final phase of romance. "We are now looking at people who have just been rejected," says Fisher. The research was presented at the Society for Neuroscience's meeting in New Orleans on Tuesday.

Que sigue? Investigar el porque las niñas coleccionan Barbies y los niños GI Joes??


New Scientist