Old but still fascinating: Love More Powerful than Sex, Study Claims
- From: Florida <demeter547opine@xxxxxxxxx>
- Date: 29 Apr 2007 10:48:22 -0700
Love More Powerful than Sex, Study Claims
By Robert Roy Britt
LiveScience Senior Writer 31 May 2005
Sex and romance may seem inextricably linked, but the human brain
clearly distinguishes between the two, according to a new study. The
upshot: Love is the more powerful emotion.
The results of brain scans speak to longstanding questions of whether
the pursuit of love and sex are different emotional endeavors or
whether romance is just warmed over sexual arousal.
"Our findings show that the brain areas activated when someone looks
at a photo of their beloved only partially overlap with the brain
regions associated with sexual arousal," said Arthur Aron of the State
University of New York-Stony Brook. "Sex and romantic love involve
quite different brain systems."
The study, announced today, will be detailed in the July issue of the
Journal of Neurophysiology.
Left side, right side
The study was small, however, involving 17 young men and women, all of
whom had recently fallen madly in love. They filled out questionnaires
while their brains were hooked up to a functional magnetic resonance
imaging (fMRI) system.
Romance seems to steep in parts of the brain that are rich in
dopamine, a chemical known to affect emotions. These brain regions are
also linked by other studies to the motivation for rewards.
"To our surprise, the activation regions associated with intense
romantic love were mostly on the right side of the brain, while the
activation regions associated with facial attractiveness were mostly
on the left," said Lucy Brown of the Albert Einstein College of
Medicine.
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 sex
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 sex 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.
http://www.livescience.com/humanbiology/050531_love_sex.html
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