Posted by Orin Kerr:
It's Not You, It's My Caudate Nucleus:
http://volokh.com/archives/archive_2005_05_29-2005_06_04.shtml#1117546008
The [1]New York Times reports:
New love can look for all the world like mental illness, a blend
of mania, dementia and obsession that cuts people off from friends
and family and prompts out-of-character behavior - compulsive phone
calling, serenades, yelling from rooftops - that could almost be
mistaken for psychosis.
Now for the first time, neuroscientists have produced brain scan
images of this fevered activity, before it settles into the wine
and roses phase of romance or the joint holiday card routines of
long-term commitment.
In an analysis of the images appearing today in The Journal of
Neurophysiology, researchers in New York and New Jersey argue that
romantic love is a biological urge distinct from sexual arousal.
It is closer in its neural profile to drives like hunger, thirst
or drug craving, the researchers assert, than to emotional states
like excitement or affection. As a relationship deepens, the brain
scans suggest, the neural activity associated with romantic love
alters slightly, and in some cases primes areas deep in the
primitive brain that are involved in long-term attachment.
References
1. http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/31/health/psychology/31love.html
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