FunIn what area of the brain is love found?

In what area of the brain is love found?

That loving feelings are not formed in the heart but in the brain , is something that science has proven long ago (thanks to modern research). But where exactly? Scientists from Concordia University in Canada have found the answer. And they ensure that it practically coincides with the brain area where sexual desire resides. Where in the brain is it, and is it in the same place as sexual desire? The work was published in the Journal of Sexual Medicine and was the first to draw an exact map of these closely related feelings.

“No one has put the two together to look at the activation patterns,” says Jim Pfaus, a professor of psychology at Concordia University, a fellow at the Center for Behavioral Neurobiology Studies and a co-author of the study. “We didn’t know what to expect, the two could have ended up completely separated. It turns out that love and desire activate specific but related areas in the brain.”

Specifically, from twenty independent studies that examined the brain activity of different subjects while observing erotic images or photographs of their loved ones, Jim Pfaus and his colleagues have concluded that both love and sexual desire activate areas of the nucleus striatum and insula . However, the neurons that are stimulated are slightly different. By pooling these data, the scientists were able to form a complete map of love and desire in the brain. The region activated by sexual desire is the same that is activated by stimuli that cause immediate pleasure . However, the area linked to love is involved in conditioning processes through which those things that generate a reward are attributed a value, turning desire into love.

The area activated by sexual desire is usually activated by things that are inherently pleasurable, such as sex or food. The area activated by love is involved in the conditioning process whereby everything that is associated with a reward or pleasure receives an inherent value. That is, as feelings of sexual desire are turned into love, they are processed in a different place in the striatum.

Furthermore, love also activates pathways in the brain that are involved in monogamy. “While sexual desire has a specific objective, love is more abstract and complex, and does not depend so much on the physical presence of the person towards whom it is professed”, clarifies Pfaus, adding that love is a habit, “although not bad “, which makes us” cerebrally addicted “.

Surprisingly, this area of the striatum is also the part of the brain associated with drug addiction. Pfaus explains that there are compelling reasons for this. “Love is actually a habit that is formed from sexual desire as desire is rewarded. It works the same way in the brain as when people become addicted to drugs.”

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