Love may feel mysterious, all-consuming, even transcendent, but cutting-edge neuroscience is beginning to show us that it is decidedly physical. Falling in love triggers brain chemistry, awakens ancient neural pathways, and reorganizes motivational circuits, affecting the way we think, feel, and act. Research spanning decades reveals love is not just a feeling; it is a potent biological imperative. Here's what we know.
The Fisher Study
In 2005, biological anthropologist Helen Fisher and her research team created the first functional MRI images of the brain “in love.” Her team culled through 2,500 brain scans of college students who were scanning the pictures of someone special to them and compared them with images of their brains while they were looking at acquaintances. The results were striking.
The brains of those scanning the photographs of their romantic partners became active in the parts of their brains soaked with dopamine, a neurotransmitter that is released during feelings of pleasure and deep-seated motivation and reward. The two most active areas were the caudate nucleus, where we detect, anticipate, and integrate all kinds of sensory information into social action, and the ventral tegmental area (VTA), the part of our brains that registers pleasure, focuses our attention, and incites us to motivated behavior toward reward.
Specifically, the VTA was an active part of the reward system of the brain. It was one part of a primitive, ancient reward system first identified over 50 years ago. It is connected to the nucleus accumbens and other networks and loops throughout the amygdala, the hippocampus, and the prefrontal cortex, and these areas of the brain were designed to make us want to do things that feel good, things we need to survive, like food and sex, social attachment, and, of course, drugs. Fisher was the first researcher to identify that romantic love activates this very survival-based system.
The Brown Study
Further support for this came from neuroscientist Lucy Brown and colleagues. By scanning 10 women and seven men with fMRI while they reported being intensely “in love” (judged by a long-standing self-report measure called the Passionate Love Scale), they found the same dopamine-rich ventral tegmental area lighting up in passionate love. For the purposes of their study, the participants alternated between gazing at a photograph of their beloved and that of a familiar but emotionally neutral person. As in Fisher’s work, what was unexpected was the involvement of the VTA. Brown found that it appears to be associated with very basic survival needs.
Recall the powerful conclusion from earlier: biologically, love is less like an emotion than it is like hunger or thirst. It is a drive, an internal motivational state that energizes and directs us to seek out connection, attachment, and bonding for the purposes of survival and thriving.
The Bottom Line
Taken together, these studies show a common truth: love remaps the brain. It sharpens attention, heightens motivation, amplifies reward circuits, and solidifies memories of the loved one. The circuits that keep us alive also keep us attached, making love one of the most potent influences on human behavior.
So much about love is starting to be understood biologically. One thing is certain: Being in love rewires the brain. And perhaps that’s the reason why love is so unforgettable, so all-consuming, and so deeply human.
