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This is The Worlds Most Asked Questions.It is the kind of thing that keeps poets and philosophers up at night, but scienceactually has a pretty good explanation for it, too.
Actually, several explanations.And the answer might change depending on what kind of scientist you ask. A biologist wouldsay it is all about reproduction, and the evolution and survival of a species.
A psychologistmay go on about our need for togetherness and acceptance.But possibly the best way to understand love is through chemistry. Brain chemistry.Although the heart is our symbol of love for some reason, when it comes down to it, loveis all about the brain.
We know this because we can actually see love in action in brain scans.And you know what? It looks a awful like a brain on cocaine.As a person first falls in love, at least a dozen different brain parts light up torelease powerful chemicals -- hormones and neurotransmitters -- that trigger feelingsof excitement, euphoria, bonding, and butterflies.
Research also shows that the kind of unconditional love between a mother and child activatesslightly different regions of the brain.
Early romantic love and attraction, what you might call passion, is all about floodingthe brain reward systems in a tsunami of feel-good chemicals like adrenaline, norepinephrine,and dopamine.
This is why a brain on intense new love looks a whole lot like a brain on coke -- adrenalineand norepinephrine amp up your heart rate and get you all restless, while those dopaminedrips leave you feeling euphoric.
These chemicals light up your brain pleasure centers, lowering your pleasure thresholds,and making it easier to feel good about... everything.
Interestingly, this kind of passionate new love is also marked by lowered serotonin levels,similar to those found in people with obsessive-compulsive disorders -- which may help explain those30 texts your infatuated new lover sent while you were in the shower.Eventually, most of these more intense, obsessive components of new love settle down into adeeper, calmer form of love associated with attachment and bonding. Here your brain chemistrystarts changing again, and hormones -- like oxytocin and vasopressin -- take over.
Their mission, like Al Greens, is to get you to stay together.You may have heard of oxytocin, the so-called the scuddle hormone. It gets releasedduring orgasms, and for women during childbirth, and it helps cement bonds between people.And you can think of vasopressin as the monogamy hormone. And you know whos taught us moreabout how it works than anything else?
Prairie voles, one of the very few mammals that mate for life.After mating, a male voles brain gets flooded with vasopressin, and essentially gets hookedon his mate forever.
The two then have lots of sex, and all that tiny boot-knocking keepsthe vasopressin flowing.When researchers gave voles a compound that suppressed the effects of vasopressin, thepairs quickly fell apart, losing their devotion to each other.
So, while in the poetic sense, love may always be something of a mystery, from the scientificview, it is within the realm of comprehension.But what about you?
How are the love lives of the SciShow viewers? Well, of our surveytakers, people within the ages of 51 and 60 are the most likely to have been in love.People who got their energy most from exercise were also more likely to have been in love.
On the other hand, people who said they got their energy from food were less likely tohave been in love.