female, 20.
psychology, neuroscience, anatomy, ballet, tea, photography, cats, other cool stuff.
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psychology, neuroscience, anatomy, ballet, tea, photography, cats, other cool stuff.
Ask me anything
Mmmm hmm, but how much do you love me?
Using fMRI, neuroscientists measured the neurochemical experience of love in a “love competition”. The idea is love isn’t a black or white concept where you either love someone or you don’t…it’s about degrees or power. Here, they put several people in an fMRI machine, told them to think about the object of their affection to see who displayed the most activity in the regions associated with love and made a little documentary about it. You can watch a preview here.
Whispery to the giddy 23 yr old: the mild head throbbing may not be love..it’s a common side effect of being in a heavily magnetized, 3-6 Tesla machine & that’s a lot …(a 1 Telsa magnet can pick up a car, FYI).
So we know that “love can elicit not only the same euphoric feeling as using cocaine, but also affects intellectual areas of the brain”.[via]
Although all fMRI studies of love point to the subcortical dopaminergic reward-related brain systems (involving dopamine and oxytocin receptors) for motivating individuals in pair-bonding, the present meta-analysis newly demonstrated that different types of love involve distinct cerebral networks, including those for higher cognitive functions such as social cognition and bodily self-representation. [via]
I wonder how they are able to compare different types of love related emotions (new/passionate vs older/secure), as well as the love they they feel when thinking of the other vs the love they have for other…or as the older lady suggested, the appreciation and love she feels for herself……cited by W. Houston (1985) replicating G. Benson (1977) as the greatest love of all.
