Love is one of the strongest behaviors in nature »

in #life6 years ago

Love is one of the central elements of life. It is as present in literature, cinema and music as in the minds of many people. However, psychology and neurosciences have not begun to study it in depth until the last century, and little is known yet about how this complex mechanism works. So far many studies study the so-called romantic love, which is that which appears when two people fall in love, and try to analyze what changes in the functioning of the brain and the release of hormones. In cases where it is difficult to study certain behaviors in humans, animal models are used to understand the most primitive mechanisms.

The professor of psychology Manuel de Juan Espinosa gives an annual seminar on "Anatomy of Love" at the School of Psychology of the Autonomous University of Madrid. The phenomenon is studied there from a cultural and evolutionary perspective, at the same time that the different phases of love are explained from a neuropsychological point of view. Previously, this professor has worked in research on intellectual disabilities or mathematical structures of human intelligence. When asked about the process of falling in love, he describes it as a cascade of neurochemical reactions and from an evolutionary perspective, but he can not hide the fascination aroused by such a "powerful" process.

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Manuel de Juan Espinosa (center) in a ceremony held at the Autonomous University of Madrid (Author: UAM)

-What happens when we fall in love?

One of the most powerful emotions of the human being arises. For love is killed and dies, win and lose kingdoms. It is a brutal force. To explain why this happens, we must understand evolution and think that it is a mechanism for the species to survive. Sex is reproduction, period, but with that the species does very little. You need breeding to be viable and for that is the mechanism of love.

  • That is, that such powerful love does not always have to do with sex ...

No, for example, the son feels a very strong love, without the sexual attraction part. In addition, love can subsist without sex, and that can be called platonic love, in which the same symptoms appear in romantic love. In our hedonistic society it has largely disappeared, perhaps because of the accessibility we have to human contact.

-Then, what changes do we experience when we fall in love?

When there appears what in science is called romantic love many changes take place from the physiological and behavioral point of view.

-To begin with, you contemplate being loved as someone unique, and you are unable to feel attracted to another person. This goes far beyond the mere sexual attraction, in fact when it is something only sexual the brain works in another way.

-The desirable things of that other person are magnified and those that are less so are minimized, although sometimes there is a little inner voice that tells you where you are getting from.

-There is an intense desire for emotional union with the beloved. That desire is superior to sexual attraction, which is also very strong but not so much.

-It generates a relationship of emotional dependence. This can end when six months pass, but it happens, although it is not politically correct to say so.

-There is a constant desire for proximity with the other.

-It appears a feeling of altruism and of surrender to the loved one.

-It is obsessively thought of in the other person. Once you're hooked, there's almost no turning back.

People often repeat their sexual adventures with the same person, even if they try to avoid love. The problem is that they release a series of hormones during kissing and orgasm (such as oxytocin or vasopressin) that have cumulative effects and that increase the satisfaction of the encounter. So after the second time comes a third. Then, one day a friend tells you that you are married. And you still say, calm I control.

The advice if you want to avoid it, is not to repeat more than twice with the same person. The hippocampus begins to repeat the image of that person, dopamine is released, serotonin levels fall and activity of the prefrontal cortex falls through the floors. Then the pink vision phase begins ...

  • The infatuation is the equivalent to the courtship of some animals?

Here is a problem And we infer a lot of animal behavior, and that in the way we shape our own in their behavior and we believe it. But hey, knowing that you have to be very careful, the fact is that many studies have started with animal behavior. Over time, they have observed amorous behaviors in snails, cats, dogs, prairie mice ... So in conclusion, saving the distances, falling in love shares some symptoms of the courtship of animals.

  • Why do we feel butterflies in the stomach?

When you go to see your beloved you are wishing for contact with that person. Stress hormones are released that cause restlessness, but at the same time the limbic system releases dopamine, and you feel happy. And if you hug him, the endorphins shoot up and you feel happy. The levels of some of the stress hormones fall and suddenly you stop being tense, your legs bend and your stomach seems to vibrate.

Is there a crush or is the infatuation process slower?

Each person arrives in a way to that set of sensations that is romantic love. There are those who tend to fall in love at first sight. That's a rush but it's not usually the most successful crush. Other people are slower to travel. They have a mental filter, with a matrix of characteristics of love that is not fully conscious, that automatically discard a person. That grid can change as we learn, but there are things that remain as a temptation. Then there is a third type of love that arises from a friendship relationship ... When it arrives, it devastates.

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