In Love
Even among couples who have been married 20 years or longer, many showed neural activity in dopamine-rich regions associated with reward and motivation, particularly the VTA, in line with those early-stage romantic love studies. In a 2012 study in the journal Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, participants showed greater brain activation in the VTA in response to images of their long-term spouse when compared with images of a close friend and a highly familiar acquaintance. Study results also showed common neural activity in several regions often activated in maternal attachment, including the frontal, limbic, and basal ganglia areas.
In Love
In the first rush of being in love, you might feel completely dedicated to your partner, ready to do anything and everything to help them through a tough spot or even just make their lives a little easier.
You may find it easier to openly share your feelings with a partner you love and feel comfortable with. Love often conveys a sense of security, so you may not feel like you need to hide your feelings or opinions to protect the relationship.
In fact, scientists have pinned down exactly what it means to "fall in love." Researchers have found that the brain of a person in love looks very different from one experiencing mere lust, and it's also unlike the brain of someone in a long-term, committed relationship. Studies led by Helen Fisher (opens in new tab), an anthropologist at Rutgers University and one of the leading experts on the biological basis of love, have revealed that the brain's "in love" phase is a unique and well-defined period of time. Here are 13 telltale signs you're in love.
People who are truly in love tend to focus on the positive qualities of their beloved, while overlooking his or her negative traits. According to the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology (opens in new tab), relationships are usually more successful when partners are idealized.
Those who are in love also focus on trivial events and objects that remind them of their loved one, daydreaming about these precious little moments and mementos. According to research published in 2013 in the journal Motivation and Emotion (opens in new tab), being in love prevents people from focusing on other information.
As is well known, falling in love often leads to emotional and physiological instability. You bounce between exhilaration, euphoria, increased energy, sleeplessness, loss of appetite, trembling, a racing heart and accelerated breathing, as well as anxiety, panic and feelings of despair when your relationship suffers even the smallest setback.
When extreme, these mood swings parallel the behavior of drug addicts, according to a 2017 article in the journal Philosophy, Psychiatry and Psychology (opens in new tab). And indeed, when in-love people are shown pictures of their loved ones, it fires up the same regions of the brain that activate when a drug addict takes a "hit". According to Fisher (opens in new tab), being in love is a form of addiction and when this is taken away from someone they can experience "withdrawals and relapse".
People who are in love report that they spend, on average, more than 85 percent of their waking hours musing over their "love object," according to Fisher. Intrusive thinking, as this form of obsessive behavior is called, may result from decreased levels of central serotonin in the brain, a condition that has been associated with obsessive behavior previously. (Obsessive-compulsive disorder is treated with serotonin-reuptake inhibitors.)
According to a 2012 study published in the Journal of Psychophysiology (opens in new tab), men who are in love have lower serotonin levels than men who are not, while the opposite applies to women. The men and women who were in love were found to be thinking about their loved one for around 65 percent of the time they were awake.
People in love regularly exhibit signs of emotional dependency on their relationship, including possessiveness, jealousy, fear of rejection, and separation anxiety. For instance, Fisher and her colleagues looked at the brains of individuals viewing photos of a rejected loved one, or someone they were still in love with after being rejected by that person.
The functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) showed activation in several brain areas, including forebrain areas like the cingulate gyrus that have been shown to play a role in cocaine cravings. "Activation of areas involved in cocaine addiction may help explain the obsessive behaviors associated with rejection in love," the researchers wrote in 2010 in the Journal of Neurophysiology (opens in new tab).
Longing for emotional union with a beloved, seeking out ways to get closer and day-dreaming about a future together are also signs of someone in love. According to an article by Harvard University (opens in new tab), when serotonin levels begin to return to normal levels, the hormone oxytocin increases in the body. This neurotransmitter is associated with creating more serious relationships.
"Functional MRI studies show that primitive neural systems underlying drive, reward recognition and euphoria are active in almost everyone when they look at the face of their beloved and think loving thoughts. This puts romantic love in the company of survival systems, like those that make us hungry or thirsty," Brown told Live Science.
"I think of romantic love as part of the human reproductive strategy. It helps us form pair-bonds, which help us survive. We were built to experience the magic of love and to be driven toward another"
Falling in love can result in someone reordering their daily priorities to align with those of their beloved. While some people may attempt to be more like a loved one, another of Fisher's studies, presented in 2013 at the "Being Human" conference, found that people are attracted to their opposites, at least their "brain-chemical" opposites.
Those who are deeply in love often experience sexual desire for their beloved, but there are strong emotional strings attached: The longing for sex is coupled with a desire for sexual exclusivity, and extreme jealousy when the partner is suspected of infidelity. According to the Indian Journal of Endocrinology and Metabolism, oxytocin is released during sexual activity. This hormone, as mentioned above, creates social bonds and develops trust.
For her 1979 book "Love and Limerence," the late psychologist Dorothy Tennov asked 400 men and women in Connecticut to respond to 200 statements on romantic love. Many participants expressed feelings of helplessness, saying their obsession was irrational and involuntary.
Romantic rejection causes a profound sense of loss and negative affect. It can induce clinical depression and in extreme cases lead to suicide and/or homicide. To begin to identify the neural systems associated with this natural loss state, we used functional magnetic resonance imaging to study 10 women and 5 men who had recently been rejected by a partner but reported they were still intensely "in love." Participants alternately viewed a photograph of their rejecting beloved and a photograph of a familiar, individual, interspersed with a distraction-attention task. Their responses while looking at their rejecter included love, despair, good, and bad memories, and wondering why this happened. Activation specific to the image of the beloved occurred in areas associated with gains and losses, craving and emotion regulation and included the ventral tegmental area (VTA) bilaterally, ventral striatum, medial and lateral orbitofrontal/prefrontal cortex, and cingulate gyrus. Compared with data from happily-in-love individuals, the regional VTA activation suggests that mesolimbic reward/survival systems are involved in romantic passion regardless of whether one is happily or unhappily in love. Forebrain activations associated with motivational relevance, gain/loss, cocaine craving, addiction, and emotion regulation suggest that higher-order systems subject to experience and learning also may mediate the rejection reaction. The results show activation of reward systems, previously identified by monetary stimuli, in a natural, endogenous, negative emotion state. Activation of areas involved in cocaine addiction may help explain the obsessive behaviors associated with rejection in love.
The film depicts a fictional love affair involving playwright William Shakespeare (Fiennes) and Viola de Lesseps (Paltrow) while Shakespeare was writing Romeo and Juliet. Several characters are based on historical figures, and many of the characters, lines, and plot devices allude to Shakespeare's plays.
Viola is summoned to court to receive approval for her proposed marriage to Wessex. Shakespeare accompanies her, disguised as her nurse's female cousin, and anonymously persuades Wessex in public to wager 50 that a play can capture the true nature of love, the amount Shakespeare requires to buy a share in the Chamberlain's Men. Queen Elizabeth I declares that she will judge the matter.
Burbage learns Shakespeare has seduced Rosaline and cheated him out of payment for the play, and starts a brawl at the Rose with his company. The Rose players repel Burbage and his men and celebrate at the pub, where a drunken Henslowe lets slip to Viola that Shakespeare is married, albeit separated from his wife. News arrives that Marlowe has been murdered. A guilt-ridden Shakespeare assumes Wessex had Marlowe killed, believing him to be Viola's lover, while Viola believes Shakespeare to be the victim. Shakespeare appears at her church, allaying Viola's fears and terrifying Wessex, who believes he is a ghost. Viola confesses her love for Shakespeare, but both recognize she cannot escape her duty to marry Wessex.
John Webster, an unpleasant boy who hangs around the theatre, spies on Shakespeare and Viola making love and informs Tilney, who closes the Rose for breaking the ban on women actors. Viola's identity is exposed, leaving Shakespeare without a stage or a lead actor, until Burbage offers his theatre and the heartbroken Shakespeare takes the role of Romeo. Following her wedding, Viola learns the play will be performed that day, and runs away to the Curtain. She overhears that the boy playing Juliet cannot perform, his voice having broken, and Henslowe asks her to replace him. She plays Juliet to Shakespeare's Romeo to an enthralled audience. 041b061a72