Love, Love Me Do

Love and the varied emotions it evokes in us are the brain’s child, shows modern science.

- Dr Sumantra Chattarji

THOSE OF US WHO GREW UP watching Bollywood movies were fed a generous dose of colourful scenes of the hero and heroine expressing their love for each other in the most acrobatic ways that often defied the laws of physics—running around trees, rolling down hillsides—all the while singing and dancing away with boundless energy! These memorable scenes may lead you to believe that a supple spinal cord, supported by a strong vocal cord, is all that is needed to express and respond to love. Modern brain science suggests otherwise.

‘Love’ is probably one of the most intriguing and poorly understood behaviours. What goes on inside the human brain when its owner is madly in love? Path-breaking research by Dr Helen Fisher provided the first glimpses, using MRI scans, of the brain of individuals intensely ‘in love’. These studies showed that feelings of romantic love, evoked by images of the beloved, activate dopamine-rich areas of the brain associated with reward and motivation, such as the ventral tegmental area and the caudate nucleus. Dopamine is a ‘neurotransmitter’ or a chemical that conveys feel-good signals between brain cells and activates the brain reward circuit, thereby making love a pleasurable experience. Interestingly, dopamine in these brain areas also plays a pivotal role in addiction to drugs and alcohol. In fact, the same dopamine-rich brain reward system gets hijacked by addiction. Perhaps Robert Palmer had it right when he sang Addicted to Love. But Tina Turner may ask—What’s Love Got To Do With It? A lot, if you ask the flies—yes, flies—in a 2012 study. Male fruit flies that had suffered sexual rejection drank a lot more alcohol compared to the lucky flies that mated with female flies. Why blame ‘Devdas’ when even failed lovers amongst fruit flies drown their sorrows in alcohol?