Written and verified by the psychologist GetPersonalGrowth.
Last update: 15 November 2021
Albert Einstein once said that explaining how we feel about someone special using terms related to the chemistry of love is to deprive the whole of magic. However, there are processes like the most obsessive attraction or passion in which neurochemistry defines the boundaries of a fascinating and extremely complex territory, which in turn defines part of who we are.
Love, from a romantic or philosophical point of view, is something that poets and writers have always told us about. We all like to sink into these literary universes in which a feeling is idealized that sometimes, it must be said, creates more mysteries than certainties. In reality, however, it is neurologists who can provide us with more precise data on falling in love as such and from a biological point of view. In a less evocative way, yes, but ultimately objective and real.
"The meeting of two personalities is like the contact of two chemical substances: if there is any reaction, both are transformed"
-CG Jung-
Anthropologists also offer us an interesting perspective that integrates very well with the chemistry of love we know through neuroscience. In fact, in our thirst for knowledge we have always tried to identify the processes underlying the lasting bonds, of those couples capable of building a stable and happy compromise.
Anthropologists tell us that humanity appears to make use of three distinct brain "tendencies". The first is where the sexual drive drives most of our behaviors. The second refers to "romantic love", in which addictive relationships are created with a high emotional and personal cost. The third is the one that constitutes the healthiest attachment, in which the couple builds a significant complicity from which both members benefit.
But besides understanding what guarantees the stability and happiness of a couple, there is another aspect that interests us. We talk about falling in love, we talk about the chemistry of love, about this strange, intense and disconcerting process that sometimes leads our gaze, our mind and our heart to turn to the less suitable person. Or on the contrary, towards the most correct, the definitive one ...
The chemistry of love and its ingredients
It is very likely that more than one of our readers think that falling in love is explained only from a neurochemical point of view, that attraction is the result of a formula whose variables adapt to this chemistry of love and the neurotransmitters that median in this process. There where our capricious brain orchestrates this magic, this desire and this obsession as it pleases ...
It is not so. Each of us has specific preferences, very deep, idiosyncratic and sometimes even unconscious. Furthermore, there is clear evidence that we tend to fall in love with people with characteristics similar to ours: level of intelligence, sense of humor, values ​​...
Yet, in all this there is something that catches the eye, something fascinating. We may find ourselves in a room with 30 people with similar characteristics to ours, similar tastes and similar values, but we don't fall in love with all of them. The Indian poet and philosopher Kabir said that the path of love is narrow and there is room in the heart only for one person. So what other factors cause this spell, the so-called chemistry of love?
"Dopamine, norepinephrine, serotonin ... when we fall in love we are a natural drug factory"
-Helen Fisher-
The aroma of genes
Intangible, invisible and imperceptible. If we say that at this very moment our genes are giving off a particular smell, capable of attracting the attention of some people and not others, most likely more than one of the readers will raise an eyebrow in skepticism.
However, more than genes, the person responsible for this particular smell of which we are not aware, but which drives our attractive behavior, is our immune system, specifically the MHC proteins.
These proteins have a specific function within our body: they activate the defensive function.
For example, it is known that women subconsciously feel more attracted to men with an immune system different from theirs. And if this smell guides them in this process by preferring genetic profiles other than their own, it is for a very simple reason: the offspring generated with this partner will have a more varied genetic charge.
Dopamine: I'm fine with you, "I need" to be close to you and I don't know why
We may have a very attractive person in front of us, yet we may not be on the same page. It does not make us feel good, the conversation does not flow smoothly, there is no harmony, we do not feel comfortable, there is no connection. Many would undoubtedly say that "there is no chemistry", and they would not be wrong.
The chemistry of love is authentic and it is for one simple reason: each emotion is triggered by a specific neurotransmitter, a chemical component that the brain releases based on a series of more or less conscious stimuli and factors.
Let's take dopamine, for example, this biological component that "turns us on". It is a chemical substance related essentially to pleasure and euphoria. There are people who quickly become the object of all our motivations, almost instinctively. Being with them creates an indisputable pleasure, a sensational well-being, an attraction that is sometimes blind.
Dopamine is also that neurotransmitter that plays the role of hormone and that is associated with a very powerful reward system, to the point of having up to 5 types of transmitters inside the brain.
One thing that all of us have experienced is the persistent need to be with one person and not with another. Falling in love makes us selective and it is dopamine that forces us to focus "our whole world" on this particular person, to the point that it becomes an "obsession".
Norepinephrine: near you everything is more intense
We know that a person attracts us because it causes us a carousel of chaotic, intense, contradictory and sometimes uncontrollable sensations.. Our hands sweat, we eat less, we sleep only a few hours or not at all, we think with less clarity. Thus, almost without realizing it, we find ourselves transformed into a small satellite that orbits around a single thought: the image of the loved one.
Have we lost our reason? Absolutely. We are under the control of norepinephrine, which stimulates the production of adrenaline. It is it that makes our heartbeat speed up, that makes our hands sweat, that activates all our noradrenergic neurons to the maximum.
The norepinephrine system has just over 1500 neurons on each side of the brain, it's not much, but when they are activated, they generate an overwhelming feeling of joy, enthusiasm, immeasurable nervousness, to the point of deactivating the appetite and / or induction to sleep.
Honey, you make me explode the "phenylethylamine"
When we are in love, we are completely dominated by an organic compound: phenylethylamine. As the word already suggests, it is an element that has many similarities with amphetamines, and which together with dopamine and seratonin constitutes the perfect recipe for a movie love.
Did you know that chocolate contains phenylethylamine? Yet its concentration is not as high as in cheese. However, the phenylethylamine in chocolate is metabolized much faster than that of some dairy products.
If we ask ourselves what the exact function of this organic compound is, it is simply surprising. It is like a biological device that tries to "intensify" all our emotions.
Phenylethylamine is like sugar in a drink or paint that we spread on a canvas: it makes everything more intense. It intensifies the action of dopamine and serotonin, constitutes the authentic chemistry of love to make us feel happy, fulfilled and incredibly motivated ...
Serotonin and oxytocin: the union that consolidates our love
The neurochemicals we have talked about so far (dopamine, norepinephrine and phenylethylamine) are the three sparks with unquestionable power at the base of the first moments of falling in love, in which desire, nervousness, passion and obsession for the loved one they guide all our behaviors.
However, this does not mean that oxytocin and serotonin are not present in this first phase. There are, but it is later that they take on greater importance, when both neurotransmitters will intensify our bonds even more, making us enter a more satisfying phase in which to consolidate the bond.
Let's see them in detail:
- Oxytocin is the hormone that originates real love. We no longer speak of the simple "falling in love" or attraction (in which the substances seen so far intervene most), we are referring to the need to take care of the loved one, to give her affection, to caress her, to be part of her in a compromise long-term.
It should be further emphasized that oxytocin is mainly responsible for the creation of emotional bonds, not just those relating to motherhood or sexuality. It is known, for example, that the greater our physical contact, the more we caress, hug, kiss, the more our brain will release oxytocin.
- For its part, serotonin can be defined with only one word: happiness. If it becomes more relevant at a later stage of falling in love, it is for a very simple reason. It starts a period in which we realize that being next to this particular person is equivalent to experiencing more intense happiness. Therefore, it is necessary to invest our strength and commit ourselves to this relationship to preserve this very positive emotional state.
When things go well, serotonin gives us well-being, it gives us optimism, good humor, satisfaction. However, when after falling in love we start and feel that the other person is moving away, that the situation cools or that he does not go beyond the sexual plane, the levels of serotonin can plummet, sometimes leading us to a state of very vulnerability and anguish. intense, in which depression may also occur.
In conclusion, as we have seen, the chemistry of love orchestrates much of our behavior, whether we want it or not. It does so both during falling in love and in the subsequent phases in which other factors come into play aimed at building compromise and stability in the couple.
Dr. Helen Fisher tells us that humans are not the only creature capable of falling in love. As Darwin also pointed out in his time, there are more than 100 species in the world, elephants, birds, rodents, who choose a partner with whom they remain for life. They experience what experts have called "primitive romantic love". But in the end it is always love ...
Defining this universal emotion in chemical terms is perhaps not very evocative, as Einstein said. But that's what we all are in the end: a wonderful intertwining of cells, electrical reactions and nerve impulses capable of offering us the most exquisite happiness ...
References
Giuliano, F.; Allard J. (2001). Dopamine and sexual function. Int J Impot Press.
Sabelli H, Javaid J. Phenylethlyamine modulation of affect: therapeutic and diagnostic implications. Journal of Neuropsychiatry 1995; 7:6-14.
Fisher, H. (2004). Why We Love: The Nature and Chemistry of Romantic Love. New York: Henry Holt.
Fisher, Helen (2005). Because we love. Corbaccio
