It's All In Your Mind

LOVE

Are you so in love you can't think straight? That may be because
your brain actually functions differently after you've been struck by
cupid's arrow, recent research suggests.

In an attempt to understand which areas of the brain help evoke
feelings of romantic love, Andreas Bartels, Ph.D., a neuroscientist at
London University College, recruited 17 students claiming to be "truly
and madly in love" for his study. Using functional magnetic resonance
imaging, he scanned their brain activity as they stared at a photograph
of their loved partners. Brain activity was measured again as the same
lovesick students viewed pictures of three platonic friends.

Upon examining the scans, Bartels found that while participants
were gazing at pictures of their loved ones, a particular pattern of
brain activity was occurring in four restricted areas--all previously
associated with pleasure and emotion. And though their brains responded
somewhat similarly to other affective states such as anger and fear, the
response pattern to romantic love was distinctly unique.

In light of his findings, published in the German psychology
journal Psychologie Heute, Bartels suggests he may have discovered an
objective means of measuring love. And though this may sound unromantic,
it does lend credence to the notion that people in love share similar
chemistries.