Falling in love can feel intoxicating. It can quickly start to feel like you can’t go a day without seeing your love interest. Your brain begins to have a hard time remembering what life was like before they entered your life. Scientists have now identified why this intense connection happens by locating where love lives in the brain.
A 2005 study published in the Journal of Neurophysiology used functional magnetic resonance imaging to study the brains of 17 people in the early stages of love. What they found changed the way scientists understand love.
Dr. Lucy Brown, a neuroscientist and clinical professor at Albert Einstein College of Medicine, told the BBC that because blood contains iron, researchers can see in brain scans which areas of the brain receive more blood flow when people are shown images of someone they’re in love with.
Locating where love lives
The study consisted of 10 women and 7 men who reported being “in love” with their partners for 1 to 17 months. When participants were shown pictures of their partners, a surprising part of their brains lit up.
“The most important thing that we found in everyone without exception was activity in this part of the brain,” Brown said, pointing to a small section of the model brain in her hand. “And this is actually the beginning of romantic love. This is what told us that romantic love is a drive, not just a euphoric feeling, not just an emotion.”
It’s a drive, not just an emotion
The area of the brain that Brown pointed to is called the ventral tegmental area (VTA). According to the Center for Nutritional Psychology’s Encyclopedia of Nutritional Psychology, the VTA is responsible for “motivation, reinforcement learning, and the processing of rewarding stimuli, including food.”
In short, it reminds you to eat and drink. When you fall in love, your brain rewires itself around that person, placing them in the same part of the brain associated with basic human needs.
“This is the survival system,” Brown said. “Nature gave us these systems to be addicted to each other, for reproduction, for protection. You’re oriented completely towards the other person. It’s like hunger or thirst.”
Being in love feels so intense because your brain essentially places that person in the “imperative to survival” category.
This is not the same area of the brain where we see ourselves, nor is it the same area where we see strangers. A 2013 study published in PLOS ONE revealed something interesting. When participants were shown positive statements about their partners, the same area of the brain activated as when they were shown positive statements about themselves.
According to the BBC, “This suggests the brain starts using similar neural patterns for our partners as it does for ourselves. Treating them more like a part of who we are.”
Professor Zoe Donaldson of the University of Colorado Boulder told the BBC that “when you form a bond, there are these molecular changes in the brain, and those molecular changes help to maintain the bond over time. They’re incredibly long lasting, and they become literally a part of our biology.”
Your brain changes
If our brain rearranges itself to fit around this new love interest, what happens when the relationship ends? Obviously, there’s no way for your brain to pretend the person it categorized as pertinent to survival no longer exists. So what happens? Your brain perceives this neurological untangling as physical pain.
“There’s literal pain in your brain,” Donaldson explained. “So if you look at the parts of the brain that light up, they overlap with the same brain regions that are activated when you feel visceral pain. When you feel actual…when you get a burn, or you break a bone.”
Heartbreak puts the brain in survival mode. People may notice physical chest pain, a rapid heartbeat, heart palpitations, rapid breathing, and more. There’s even “broken heart syndrome,” a type of heart failure that can happen after losing a loved one. You may hear people refer to it as “dying from a broken heart.” This is a real condition called Takotsubo cardiomyopathy. Donaldson said people are at a 21 percent increased risk of having a heart attack the day after losing a spouse.
Heartbreak doesn’t have to be the end. Your brain won’t have a permanent person-shaped hole after a breakup because it will work to repair itself.
“First, face that hurt. Maybe listen to the tons of love songs about rejection. Take the pictures off your phone. Take the texts off your phone; don’t keep reading them,” Brown said. “So you have to rebuild yourself and finding something that draws your attention, that you really like to do. Some people exercise, some people become great cooks, some people travel. If you can travel, that’s perfect.”
