The first week that Sonia Talati started dating her boyfriend of now 15 months, she unexpectedly noticed a distinct change in both her physical and psychological desires.
“I felt the need to be with him a lot more,” said Talati, a second-year economics and communication studies student. “I just wanted to come back from class and go and see him.”
A growing number of scientists are discovering that there is a strong correlation between the seemingly indescribable and volatile feelings of love and the activity of several neurotransmitters in brain pathways.
“At the most basic level, you have a host of neurotransmitters playing a role in reward tracts,” said Joshua Poore, a UCLA doctoral candidate in social psychology focusing his studies on the intense early feelings of love.
Though he emphasized that the research done on the topic has been far from conclusive, Poore explained that such brain chemicals as oxytocin, dopamine and opiates are involved in triggering activity in opiate-rich parts of the brain, called reward circuits.
Talati said that at the beginning of her relationship, she would feel sudden rushes of almost euphoric happiness.
“If I was going to go see him, I would feel … really, really happy,” Talati said.
These sensations of glee are a result of the interaction of dopamine, which regulates pleasure and motivation, with the reward circuits of the brain, said Poore. These circuits are located both in ganglia in the base of the brain and scattered throughout the organ’s central area.
“Dopamine in the reward tract … increases the likelihood that we will behave a certain way,” Poore said. “When you start falling in love, your brain is saying that interactions with this person are really rewarding.”
Neurotransmitters are also involved in later stages of love.
Carter Chastain, a first-year theater student who has been dating his girlfriend for five months said that though he underwent extreme romantic feelings at the onset of the relationship, they have gradually segued into those of companionship.
“For the first month, I was worried if it’ll last. Now I don’t even think about it,” he said, adding that he has ultimate trust in his girlfriend.
This shift can be partially attributed to the release of oxytocin, a mammalian hormone that raises feelings of connectedness and affiliation, said Gian Gonzaga, an adjunct professor in psychology at UCLA and a senior research scientist at eHarmony Labs.
“Oxytocin seems to be more about long-term bonds of love,” he said. “(It says) let’s stay connected so that the relationship can last.”
Oxytocin also greatly increases the number of opiate producers in the brain, Poore said. He added that this contributes to a contented and comfortable feeling that many couples undergo after having been together for an extended period.
“(The relationship is) not as new, but it’s more stable,” Talati said of the direction her relationship has gone. “It’s more dependable, more consistent, rather than the highs before.”
Poore and Gonzaga stressed the interdependence of these neurochemicals, saying that they all rely on one another to perform their functions.
“They all depend on the actions of one another to promote (human) bonding,” Poore said.
Gonzaga added that other neurotransmitters, including vasopressin, which is structurally similar to oxytocin, and the hormones testosterone and estrogen, which regulate sexual urges, are also present in the equation.
Through the increase of research conducted on the topic, the roots and products of love ““ which have previously been written off as irrational and unexplainable ““ are slowly being uncovered and predicted, the scientists said.