Falling in love changes our brain, finds new study

A new study has found that falling in love can change the way your brain works, making you put your loved one on a pedestal.

The study investigated the link between romantic love and the human brain. (Pexels)

We already know that being in love changes the brain by releasing the so-called “love hormone” oxytocin. A new study has found out that when we are in love, our brain reacts differently, making the object of our affections the centre of our lives.

Researchers from The Australian National University (ANU), the University of Canberra and the University of South Australia (UniSA) worked together to measure how a part of the brain is responsible for putting our loved one on a pedestal when we fall in love. The study published in the journal Behavioral Science investigated the link between the human brain’s “behavioural activation system” and romantic love.

To study that, researchers surveyed 1,556 young adults who identified as “being in love.”

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“We actually know very little about the evolution of romantic love. As a result, every finding that tells us about romantic love’s evolution is an important piece of the puzzle that’s just been started. It is thought that romantic love first emerged some five million years ago after we split from our ancestors, the great apes. We know the ancient Greeks philosophised about it a lot, recognising it both as an amazing as well as traumatic experience. The oldest poem ever to be recovered was in fact a love poem dated to around 2000 BCE,” said study lead Adam Bode in a press statement.

According to the researchers, the way that loved ones take on special importance has something to do with oxytocin combining with dopamine, which is another chemical that human brains release during romantic love. Basically, love activates pathways in our brain associated with positive feelings.

Tags:
romantic relationships

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