Happy Mind: The Philosophy and Science of Happiness

 

Katherine Power writes about the science of love.

 

Expressions like 'madly in love', 'crazy for you' and 'lovesick' may be more accurate than we think. When we fall in love, our brains experience an explosion of powerful chemicals. The neural profile that emerges has led some scientists to compare the initial stages of love to mental illnesses like obsessive compulsive disorder and mania, the manic phase of manic depression.

Helen Fisher, a researcher at Rutgers University and the author of Why We Love: The Nature and Chemistry of Romantic Love believes we evolved three systems related to matters of the heart: the first deals with lust, the second with romantic love – also known as attraction, obsessive love, passionate love or 'being in love' – and the third with attachment. Fisher's theory is that the three systems motivate us, respectively, to mate, focus our attention on a particular partner, and stick with that partner long enough to look after the children we may have.

 

Not only does Fisher think that romantic love is a drive, she thinks it is a very strong drive, stronger than lust, as people are more likely to commit suicide or homicide when rejected by someone they love than when their sexual overtures fail.

There is some scepticism about how much brain imaging technology can tell us – it certainly doesn't read minds, but it can show us which areas of the brain experience an increase or decrease in blood flow, and this gives us an idea of the kind of neural activity taking place. What this technology has revealed about falling in love is that it involves areas located deep within the brain, in a region which takes care of basic functions like eating and drinking. What is striking about these areas, known as the right caudate nucleus and the right ventral tegmental area, is that they are rich in cells that receive or produce dopamine, a chemical linked to reward, and associated with euphoria, craving and addiction.

A 2002 study by Fisher and her colleagues revealed differences between the genders when it comes to falling in love. Even though both love-struck men and women show increased activation in the right caudate nucleus and the right ventral tegmental area, in the majority of women there also seems to be an increase in activity in areas associated with memory recall, whereas in most men certain visual processing areas become especially activated, including one associated with sexual arousal. According to Fisher, this means that men fall in love faster, as women first need to create a 'memory trail' of their mate’s behaviours.

What's more, when we fall in love, interesting things happen to our hormones. A study by Donatella Marazziti of the University of Pisa showed that, in the initial stage of love, men and women become more alike. Whereas love-struck men have less testosterone, a hormone linked to aggression and sex, love-struck women have more.

“Men, in some way, had become more like women, and women had become like men,” Marazziti went on record as saying. “It's as if nature wants to eliminate what can be different in men and women, because it's more important to survive at this stage.”

With time, as love matures, hormones levels go back to normal. After two years the couples in Marazziti's study were tested again, and their testosterone levels were no longer atypical of their gender.

According to  Fisher, infatuation is remarkably similar to obsessive compulsive disorder, OCD, a condition so called because it is characterised by obsessions and compulsions. Obsessions are frequent, automatic and involuntary thoughts of an upsetting nature. Compulsions are actions that people with OCD feel compelled to perform and which temporarily reduce anxiety.

“What I know is that both the intense early stages of romantic love and OCD are associated with low activity of serotonin, and that people in the early stages of romantic love think obsessively about their beloved and obsessive thinking often accompanies OCD,” says Fisher.

A 1999 study by Marazziti and her colleagues found that the brains of those who are in the early stages of love and those who suffer from OCD were equally low in the brain chemical serotonin. This is thought to be caused by the powerful cocktail of chemicals associated with romantic love, such as adrenaline and phenylethylamine (or PEA, also present in small amounts in chocolate). These chemicals cause euphoria, but also lower serotonin, and the result seems to be an increase in obsessive behaviour.

Kyle [not his real name] suffers from OCD, which makes getting ready to go out quite a mission. Even putting a pair of jeans on can take a while, as he can get stuck in a “left leg in, left leg out, in, out, shake it all about” routine. Before leaving the house, he turns the light in the bathroom on and off and checks repeatedly that all of the electrical appliances in his room are unplugged. 

 

“I wash my hands a lot, and I have to rinse them a certain number of times,” he says. “Currently that's based around the number three, so three times is good, six is OK, but nine is even better because it's three-squared.”

Antidepressants, which affect the levels of serotonin in the brain, can help people with OCD, which intriguingly suggests infatuation too could be ‘cured’.  

This would be good news for my friend Liz, who compares infatuation to an episode of flu: “Unpleasant and tedious and only solved by waiting for it to run its course. Specific symptoms are continuous replaying of past scenarios, and imagining of future ones. Very tedious. And I seem to remember also feeling vaguely nauseous.”

Fisher thinks that antidepressants like Prozac might inhibit love, but only at the very beginning. This doesn't surprise Kyle, who found that, on SSRIs antidepressants, his main emotion was detachment.

“I couldn't obsess, but I couldn't enjoy, experience, or engage in anything deeply,” says Kyle. “I doubt very much I could have maintained an infatuation in that state.”

Fisher believes that, if anything, “someone with OCD would become more obsessive when in love”. This would seem to make sense, but Kyle finds that falling in love makes him less obsessive. It could be a case of one obsession replacing another, or perhaps Kyle should not be thanking romantic love, but its two close-relations, lust and attachment.

Infatuation may lower levels of serotonin, but, when attraction is reciprocated, a different profile emerges. The effect of sex and cuddles on the brain is similar to that induced by opiates: levels of serotonin increase, as do levels of two other chemicals: oxytocin, the 'cuddle hormone', and vasopressin, both thought to be implicated in pair bonding.

There is a theory that monogamy depends on these chemicals, which make partners addicted to each other. Prairie voles are normally faithful animals, but this can be changed by tampering with the release of oxytocin and vasopressin in their brains. They can also be made to bond to a partner, without any sex taking place, if injected with oxytocin and vasopressin. According to Larry Young, a researcher into social attachment, it is likely humans too become addicted to each other through a similar mechanism. And, once we are hooked, attachment kicks in, and with it feelings of calm, rather than obsession.

“Being with someone I love is almost like an antidote to the OCD,” says Kyle. “It makes me feel calm, reassured and safe. I don't care about contamination at all with a person I love – their touch doesn't taint and I learn to trust them to wash things for me. They're on my side, and can usually do no wrong. Being in love is a cocoon from the outside world. It's your own little microcosm of trust, where everything is under the control of people you trust. A little paradise refuge where you can be safe.”