Scientifically, to a certain extent romantic love could be called an addiction. According to the brain regions and chemicals involved, and the behaviour it invokes for the first year and a half – romantic love is primarily a drive with an evolutionary base, comparable to hunger or thirst. However, both major addictions and romantic love are associated with increased levels of the chemical dopamine (Kandel, Schwartz and Jessell 1995; Bear et al 2001), and symptoms of both include dependency and craving. Certainly evidence indicates that love is more than emotion, although as with other drives, varying emotions can be associated with love depending on whether or not the drive is being fulfilled.
Studies (Bartels and Zeki 2000; Fisher 2003) have shown that the brains of people in love are especially active in the Ventral Tegmental Area (VTA), consisting of dopamine-making cells. Dopamine causes focussed attention, increased energy, sleeplessness, loss of appetite, motivation to acquire reward (in this case the reward is love from, or the presence of, the object of affection), elation and even mania; all well-known symptoms of love.
Similarly, the same studies indicated high activity in parts of the right caudate nucleus, also involved in the motivation and reward system of the brain, as well as being a network for general arousal and sensations of pleasure. Significantly, the caudate nucleus is also found in the reptilian brain because this brain region evolved long before mammals proliferated, emphasising how romantic love is evolutionarily hard-wired into humans.
Norepeniphrine, which, like dopamine, is found in high levels in brain regions of people in love, causes exhilaration, sleeplessness, loss of appetite, promotes improved memory for new stimuli, and in addition the release of this chemical is associated with those feelings of stress and nervousness during this time.
Romantic love has been likened to a mild and temporary form of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD), which is also most common in young adults. When in love you want to see and talk to your loved one regularly, becoming anxious if this is prevented. When not with them you will think and/or talk about your loved one repetitively. Similarly patients with OCD will engage in repetitive behaviour, also becoming anxious if prevented from doing so. Furthermore in the brains of both lovers and patients with the anxiety disorder OCD, studies show that there are lower than average levels of the chemical serotonin. OCD-like symptoms could also be attributed to the afore-mentioned levels of norepeniphrine, whose effects on memory probably aid obsessive recalling of all details of the new love, and analysing everything they say and do.
Unless the craved reward is forcibly withdrawn or reduced, addictions, including to the loved one, will continue and could intensify, requiring more of the reward to elicit the same response. Similarly should the love be withdrawn, the scorned lover responds in the same way as with the withdrawal of any other addiction, most notably to crave return of the discontinued reward. This is because among other complicated effects of the stress pathway, activated by the rejection, stress also has the short-term effect of increasing dopamine further, intensifying feelings towards the object of affection or addiction, and causing further distress. Eventually the levels of this chemical return to normal. Interestingly, one study of social rejection, although not specifically in the context of romantic love, showed that people rejected have increased activity in the region of the brain associated with physical pain (Lieberman, cited by Cohen, 2003).
The obsessive symptoms of romantic love have a shelf-life of about one and a half years, after which the chemicals discussed here return to normal levels. At this point either the relationship ends, or a different set of chemicals, involved with attachment, come into play and the relationship takes on a new form, which is not related to addictive tendencies, but has a more emotional basis (Bartels and Zeki 2000; Fisher 2003). Until this point, although scientifically categorised as a drive, romantic love has many chemical and behavioural similarities with addiction.
Fisher, H. (2003) Why we love: the nature and chemistry of romantic love: Owl Books
Bear, M., Connors, B., Paradiso, M., (2001) Brain Mechanisms of Emotion. In Neuroscience: Exploring the Brain: Lippincott Williams & Wilkins (2nd edition) chap.18
Smuts, B., The Brain in Love’ in Scientific American (April 2004) pp74-75
Feeling another’s pain’ in Focus 138 (May 2004) pp 18
Cohen, P., Rejection really hurts’ in New Scientist (9th October 2003)
Bartels, A., Zeki, S. The neural basis of romantic love’ In Neuroreport (November 27th 2000) 11(17) pp3829-3834
Kandel, Eric R., Schwartz, James H., Jessell, Thomas M., (1995) Essentials of Neuroscience and behaviour: Appleton and Lange
