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JustJess · 02-14-2006, 11:08 AM

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Romance may be tied to reward system that can cause addiction

People all over the world describe falling in love in similar terms: euphoria, exhilaration, elation.

It's an intense craving for the person they adore. But just how does the brain process romantic love?

Anthropologist Helen Fisher, author of "Why We Love," studied the brain circuitry that makes falling in love the intense, passionate emotion it is. She found that the brain sees romantic love as a reward, stimulating activity in the same areas that light up when a person seeks any kind of a reward, whether it's chocolate, money or drugs.

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The participants were put into an MRI machine and asked to stare at photographs of their sweethearts and then neutral photos that called for no positive or negative feelings. When the researchers were able to look inside the brain in love, they said they were struck by the results.

The part of the brain that lit up the strongest was that associated with rewards and pleasure, a finding not nearly as poetic as romantics would have thought. It turns out that, to the brain, love is just another reward, much like chocolate or money, or like a drug to an addict. This brain system gets used every time you want something.

Romantic love, it turns out, is a reward, the researchers say.

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When Brown started the study, she said she thought she was studying a strong positive emotion.

"Now I have changed the way I think about early-stage romantic love," she said. "It's a motivation; the person [we're in love with] is a goal. Emotions come and go. We feel euphoria, but we feel anxiety, too. This core system that is driving the person who is in love toward their sweetheart, that is much more important in a sense than an emotion."

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Fisher agreed: "Romantic love is not only an emotion, it's a basic mating drive, and it's stronger than the sex drive."

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Although the early characteristics of romantic love don't last forever -- the pounding heart, the obsessive thinking and craving -- in good relationships they will transfer to a different level, a stage of love called "attachment," Fisher said.

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In her own studies of more than 800 people older than 45, Fisher found that they showed just as much romantic passion as those under 25.

In fact, romantic love can be triggered at any age. Fisher said she interviewed an 8-year-old boy who perfectly described his intense passion for an 8-year-old girl. She said she also knows couples in their 70s and 80s who are madly in love.

Whether you've got a sweetie for the day or not, whether you like VDay or not... Love is an interesting state. I think this article is right on, actually - who can argue that they're not in an altered state when they're in the first flush of love? *Everything* seems better when you're in love. Whether it is or not is another discussion entirely.

Have you experienced things this way in your life? Are you in love? Do you enjoy being in love? Any withdrawal symptoms?

I used to have a friend that told me they were addicted to being in love, the first blush of the intense crush... and kept breaking up with people once the infatuation wore off. Guess they never made it to the next stage...