Addicted to Love

[Guest W***ledi*Time]

Amanda Kwan reports for the [I]Globe and Mai[/I]l, 21 Jun 2012:

[INDENT][B]Love a hard habit to break[/B]

An area of the brain activated by feelings of love and desire is also related to drug addiction, according to a study published Wednesday in the[I] Journal of Sexual Medicine[/I].

[B]Love is a habit that is formed as sexual desire is rewarded, the same process that happens in the brain when someone becomes addicted to drugs[/B], said Jim Pfaus, a psychology and neuroscience professor at Concordia University in Montreal and a co-author of the study.

â??You become addicted to the cues of your lover. You see this person and you immediately become happy,â? Dr. Pfaus said.

These cues â?? a particular set of traits that make a specific person attractive â?? can be anything from the shape of a personâ??s face to the way they smell, he said. â??If your lover goes, you may seek similar characteristics out of future lovers.â?

Researchers from Concordia University, University of Geneva in Switzerland and Syracuse University in the United States, analyzed the results from 20 studies that looked at peopleâ??s brains while they viewed erotic pictures or photos of their partners.

Using this data, the researchers came up with a map of love and desire in the brain. They located where these feelings are activated, and were able to see where they overlapped.

â??The systems are different but where they overlap is probably really critical in keeping [feelings of love and desire] together, keeping that love flame together,â? Dr. Pfaus said.

Two areas of the brain â?? the insula and striatum â?? are involved in the development of sexual desire into love. The insula is a part of the cerebral cortex, which is responsible for thinking, memory and understanding language.

[B]Love and attraction activate different parts of the brainâ??s striatum. As sexual desire turns into love, the feeling is processed in another part of the striatum.

What researchers found surprising is that this particular area is the part of the brain related to drug addiction.[/B]

An addict initially experiences intense pleasure when taking drugs and even though that pleasure eventually disappears, addicts continue to crave something they donâ??t even like or want. â??Similar things happen in relationships that go sour or relationships where things have become so habitual that they become boring,â? Dr. Pfaus said.

That person may become angry or try to save the relationship.[B] Falling out of love is similar to the experiences of drug withdrawal.[/B]

â??When someone breaks up with you abruptly, we act like insane addicts: waiting by the telephone for the call that never comes, going and begging the person to come back or even committing acts of violence against the new lover.â?

Dr. Pfaus said these are extreme behaviours that you also see in drug addicts who are denied drugs. But once you have withdrawn completely, â??you can look at this person and not get that sense of pining or craving. But you still have the memory. Youâ??re not going to forget.â?[/INDENT]