Beyonce and anthropologist

Helen Fisher agree:

Love is an obsession.
By Kirsten Weir

hat do you think

about when you're
feeling romantic?
Bouquets of roses .*
Boxes of choco-
lales? Handmade paper valentines?
When Helen Fisher thinks about love
and romance, she pictures neurotransmit-
ters, the caudate nucleus, and the ventral
tegmental area. Fisher, an anthropologi.st
at Rutgers University in New Jersey, has
been probing the chemical and biological
nature of romantic love.
For most of us, love is a matter of the
heart. But for Fisher, love happens in the hrain.

LOVE-STRUCK
Fisher began her work several years ago by scan-
ning the brains of volunteers who had recently
fallen madly in love. In prete.st interviews, she
asked people how often they thought about their
beloved. She wanted to Iind those who daydreamed
about their sweetheart at least 85 to 90 percent of
the time—subjects "whose romantic feelings were
fresh, vivid, uncontrollable, passionate," she
explained in her book Why We Un-e.
Once she identified her love-struck subjects. Fisher
utilized 'djlincllonal niaf>nc'llc resonance imagiug
(fMRl) machine to take pictures of their brains. An fMRI
machine uses magnetism and radio waves to examine
the body's soft tissues. Specifically, she recorded
blood flow in the brain. When a region of the
brain is active, it needs more o.xygen. and the
amount of hlood flowing to it increases.
Fisher took one set of fMRI scans while her
subjects looked at photos of their sweetheart and

4 CuRREKT SCIENCE February 11, 2005

 LOVE CONNECTIONS The second active region in the love-
struck brain is the ventral tegmental area
The brain is made up of fflany different regions, each of which has its
(VTA), another part of the mesolimbic
own particular function. In the brains of the love-struck, two regions are
especially active—the cauitdte nucleus, which rewards us with feelings
reward system. The VTA is made up of
of pleasure, and the ventral tegmental area, which sprinkles the chemical
cells that release dopamine. Dopamine is a
messenger dapamme around the brain, creating love's high.
neurotransmitter, a chemical that nerve cells
release to send messages to one another.
High levels of dopamine produce exhilara-
tion, increased energy, sleeplessness, and
a pounding heart, among other things.
The VTA acts like a sprinkler system,
says Fisher, delivering dopamine to many
regions of the brain, including the caudate
nucleus. "As this sprinkler system sends
dopamine to many brain parts," Fisher
wrote in her book, "it produces focused
attention, as well as fierce energy, concen-
Prefrontal trated motivation to attain a reward, and
cortex
feelings of elation, even mania—the core
feelings of romantic love."
Cerebellum Dopamine
Romantic love is often described as a
pathways high that produces craving, dependence,
Ventral
tegmental area personality change, and a loss of control.
Caudate nucleus Not surprisingly, then, other fMRI studies
Brain stem have found that most addictive drugs, such
as cocaine, opium, and heroin, also affect
the mesolimbic reward system, activated
by dopamine. "Romantic love stimulates
another set while they looked at photos of acquaintances parts of the same pathway with the same chemical,"
they had no strong positive or negative feelings for. said Fisher. In other words, love is more than a powerful
Then she analyzed the differences. feeling, according to Fisher; it is "an addictive drug."

ADDICTED
Fisher found that two distinct brain regions are central to
feelings of romantic love. The first is the caudaie nucleus.
a large C-shaped area near the center of the brain. The
caudate nucleus is a primitive region that evolved in our
prehistoric reptilian ancestors. It is an important part of
the brain's mesolimbic reward system, which rewards us
(and other animals) with feelings of pleasure when we
behave in ways that help us survive and pass on our
genes—when we eat, drink, or mate, for example.
Romantic love
is a basic human
drive, no different
in terms of brain
chemistry from
hunger or thirst
OBSESSED
Dopamine isn't the only romance chemical. Another
neurotransmitter. serotonin, seems to play a role in
making people fall head over heels. Serotonin regulates
mood, appetite, sexual desire, aggression, body temper-
ature, and sleep.
A few years ago, scientists in Italy discovered that
men and women who had recently fallen in love had
much lower serotonin levels in their blood than did
healthy people who weren't in love. The low serotonin
levels were similar, in fact, to those of people who suffer
from obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). OCD is a
condition in which a person is consumed by an intense
desire to think the same thought (obsession) or perform
the same action (compulsion) again and again. People
with OCD may wash their hands repeatedly or be
plagued by a melody they can't shake from their head.
Love is an obsession, too, especially in the early
stages of a blossoming romance, says Fisher. Unlike
OCD, though, it is not a disorder. Romantic love is a
basic human drive, no different in terms of brain
chemistry from hunger or thirst.
"Romantic love is deeply threaded into our human
spirit." Fi.sher wrote. "If humanity survives on this planet
for another million million years, this primordial... force
will still prevail." CS

February 11, 2005 CuRREffrSCIENCE 5