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Biology of romantic love

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The biology of romantic love has been explored by such biological sciences as evolutionary psychology, evolutionary biology, anthropology and neuroscience. Neurochemicals and hormones such as dopamine and oxytocin are studied along with a variety of interrelated brain systems which produce the psychological experience and behaviors of romantic love.

Definition of romantic love

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The meaning of the term "romantic love" has changed considerably throughout history, making it difficult to simply define.[1] Initially it was coined to refer to certain attitudes and behaviors described in a body of literature now referred to as courtly love.[2] However, academic psychology and especially biology also consider romantic love in a different sense, which refers to a brain system (or systems) related to pair bonding or mating with associated psychological properties.[3][4][5][6]

Bode and Kushnick undertook a comprehensive review of romantic love from a biological perspective in 2021. They considered the psychology of romantic love, its mechanisms, development across the lifespan, functions, and evolutionary history. Based on the content of that review, they proposed a biological definition of romantic love:[4]

Romantic love is a motivational state typically associated with a desire for long-term mating with a particular individual. It occurs across the lifespan and is associated with distinctive cognitive, emotional, behavioral, social, genetic, neural, and endocrine activity in both sexes. Throughout much of the life course, it serves mate choice, courtship, sex, and pair-bonding functions. It is a suite of adaptations and by-products that arose sometime during the recent evolutionary history of humans.

Romantic love in this sense is also not necessarily "dyadic", "social" or "interpersonal", despite being related to pair bonding. Romantic love can be experienced outside the context of a relationship, for example in the case of unrequited love where the feelings are not reciprocated.[7][8] A person can develop romantic love feelings before any relationship has occurred, for only a potential partner.[7][8][5] The potential partner can even be somebody they do not know well or aren't acquainted with at all, as in cases of love at first sight and parasocial attachments.[7][9][10]

The early stage of romantic love (which has obsessive and addictive features) is also commonly referred to as passionate love, infatuation, limerence, being "in love" or obsessive love.[11][12][13][4][14] Research has never settled on a unified terminology or set of methods.[4][15] Distinctions are drawn between this early stage of romantic love and the "attachment system" theorized by the attachment theorists like John Bowlby.[16][6][17] In the past, attachment theorists have argued that attachment theory and attachment styles can replace other theories of love, but academics on love have argued this is incorrect and that romantic love and attachment are not identical concepts.[18][17][16] The early stage of romantic love is thought to involve additional brain systems for other purposes, with distinct evolutionary histories.[16][11][6] Romantic love is also distinct from sexual attraction, although they most often occur together.[11][6][19]

Variation exists in the way romantic love is expressed in the population. A cross-cultural study of currently in-love people found four clusters, with varying degrees of intensity, obsessive thinking, commitment, frequency of sex and other differences.[20] Other studies indicate romantic love can be experienced both with or without obsessional features.[14][21] Typically, intense romantic love is limited to a duration of 12-18 months or as long as 3 years, depending on the estimate;[4][12] however, in a rare phenomenon called "long-term intense romantic love", some people experience intense attraction inside a relationship, even for 10 years or more. This is similar to early-stage intense romantic love, but at this later stage they exhibit less of the obsessional features.[14][21]

Independent emotion systems

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Simplified overview of the neurochemical and hormonal basis of love.
See also: Passionate and companionate love

Helen Fisher and her colleagues proposed that the brain systems involved with mammalian reproduction can be separated into at least three parts:[16][11]

Neuroscientists currently believe that the basic emotions arise from distinct circuits (or systems) of neural activity; that humans share several of these primary emotion-motivation circuits with other mammals; and that these brain systems evolved to direct behavior [...]. It is hypothesized that among these primary neural systems are at least three discrete, interrelated emotion-motivation systems in the mammalian brain for mating, reproduction, and parenting: lust, attraction, and attachment [...].

In Fisher's theory, the systems tend to act in unison, but may become disassociated and act independently. For example, a person in a long-term partnership may feel deep attachment for their spouse, while experiencing intense romantic love (attraction) for some other individual, while being sexually attracted (lust) to still others, all at the same time.[22][11] Lisa Diamond has also used independent emotions theory to explain why people can 'fall in love' sometimes without sexual desire, as in the case of "platonic" infatuation for a friend.[19][23]

Fisher associates each system with different neurotransmitters and/or hormones (lust: estrogen & androgens; attraction: dopamine, norepinephrine & serotonin; attachment: oxytocin & vasopressin), but modern research shows these associations are not as clearly defined as Fisher's theory proposes.[11][6][4][24] Additionally, romantic love has been associated with endogenous opioids, cortisol and nerve growth factor which are not included in Fisher's earlier theories.[6][25][26] Fisher's model is considered outdated, although the idea of interrelated systems is useful.[6]

Evolution of systems

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Courtship attraction theory

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Unsolved problem in biology
When did human pair bonding evolve? Is pair bonding an antecedent to romantic love, or have there been other steps in the evolution of pair bonds in humans (e.g. a seasonal bond)?[6]
More unsolved problems in biology

Helen Fisher's theory is that romantic love (which she considers distinct from attachment) is a motivation system for choosing and focusing energy on a preferred mating partner. According to Fisher, this brain system evolved for mammalian mate choice, also called "courtship attraction". In this phenomenon, a preferred mating partner is chosen based on a display of physical traits (such as a peacock's tail feathers) or other behaviors.[16][11][5] Fisher also includes the attraction to personality traits and other characteristics in her mate choice theory for humans.[27][28][29] Courtship attraction shares similar behaviors with romantic love in humans, and both involve activation of dopaminergic reward circuits. In most species, courtship attraction is as brief as lasting only minutes, hours, days or weeks, but intense romantic love can last much longer in humans.[5]

A critique of Fisher's theory published by Adam Bode holds that courtship attraction only encompasses love at first sight attraction or a crush, and the core components of romantic love (including the intense attraction and obsessive thoughts, in addition to attachment) evolved as a co-option of mother-infant bonding.[6] A study on love at first sight found that even though people reporting the experience retrospectively will recall features resembling passionate love ("constant thoughts about the person and the desire to be with him or her"), people reporting love at first sight currently after just meeting the potential partner only report neutral scores (neither agreeing nor disagreeing) on a romantic love measure including a passion component. Some authors have speculated that the remembered account of falling in love at first sight (with high passion) is often actually a memory confabulation. Furthermore, the study found that the experience of love at first sight was related to the physical attractiveness of the potential partner. This led the researchers to conclude that love at first sight is actually a strong initial attraction, rather than resembling the state of being in love.[10] Bode argues this more closely resembles the concept of courtship attraction, and can be considered a separate system from core romantic love components. Courtship attraction may be characterized by dopamine, oxytocin and opioid activity, but little is known about it because existing studies were not designed to target it.[6]

Co-option theory

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Co-option is an evolutionary process whereby a given trait is repurposed to take on a new function.[30][6][4] One example is how a number of species of fish (e.g. catfish) have co-opted their gas bladder to produce sound. Co-opted traits can be morphological, but also behavioral. Co-option has been used as an explanation of how a species can develop an evolutionary adaptation very quickly sometimes, seemingly faster than Darwinism could explain. With this process, a seemingly "new" trait can develop quickly because its structure predated the time of adaptation, only needing to be modified to function in a new way. In some cases, co-option involves one gene whose function is altered, while in other cases the co-opted gene is a duplicate and the function of the original gene is retained.[30] The terms "co-option" and "exaptation" are closely related, but have different connotations. Exaptation refers to structural continuity when a trait takes on a new function.[30][6]

Adam Bode has proposed that romantic love is "a suite of adaptations and by-products" consisting of a number of interrelated systems, several of which evolved by co-opting mother-infant bonding (attraction for bonding, obsessive thinking and attachment). The co-option theory says that the genes that regulate mother-infant bonding were recreated and took on a new function. Courtship attraction and sexual desire are "causally linked adjuncts" which were not co-opted, but were combined and modified in romantic love. The theory is based on the available human evidence, but also a literature arising from research on prairie voles that pair bonding uses the same mechanisms that mother-infant bonding uses.[6][4]

Academic literature has drawn a parallel between romantic love and the mother-infant dyad since the 1980s, with attachment theorists like Cindy Hazan and Phillip Shaver believing the two share a common biological process.[31] In 1998, James Leckman & Linda Mayes compared features of romantic love and early parental love, finding substantial similarities. Both are altered mental states featuring preoccupations, exclusivity of focus, a longing for reciprocity and idealization of the other. The trajectories of both also share similarities, with preoccupation increasing during courtship (for romantic love) and around the time of birth (for parental love), then diminishing after a relationship is established (for romantic love) or shortly after the postpartum period (for parental love).[32][6][4] (The use of "baby talk" by romantic lovers is another "uncanny" similarity.)[6] In 2004, Andreas Bartels and Semir Zeki were the first to compare romantic love and maternal love with fMRI. This comparison looked at areas known to contain high densities of receptors for the attachment hormones oxytocin and vasopressin. Bartels & Zeki found precise overlap in some specific areas including the striatum (putamen, globus pallidus and caudate nucleus) and some overlap in the ventral tegmental area, areas with dopamine and oxytocin receptors. Each type of love was also associated with other unique activations. Notably, maternal love involved the periaqueductal gray matter, an area associated with endogenous pain suppression during intense emotional experiences such as childbirth.[33][34][6] Two meta-analyses of fMRI experiments have also found similarities between maternal love and romantic love.[35][34][6] A 2022 meta-analysis by Shih et al. found that both types of love were associated with the left ventral tegmental area (more associated with the pleasurable aspect of reward, or "liking"), while in addition romantic love also involved the right ventral tegmental area (more associated with reward "wanting").[34]

In 2003, Lisa Diamond suggested that adult pair bonding is an exaptation of the affectional bond between infants and caregivers, using this to explain instances of "platonic" infatuations, or i.e. "romantic" passion without sexual desire.[36][19] Some instances of this are reported by Dorothy Tennov in her study of "limerence" (i.e. love madness, commonly for an unreachable person), in which a younger woman who otherwise considered herself heterosexual would have this type of reaction towards an older woman.[36][37][38][39] Among other examples are schoolgirls falling "violently in love with each other, and suffering all the pangs of unrequited attachment, desperate jealousy etc." (historically called a "smash"), and Native American men who seemed to fall in love with each other and form intense, but non-sexual bonds. Helen Fisher's theory that sexual desire is a separate system from romantic love and attachment as also given as theoretical evidence. Diamond argues that romantic love without sexual desire can even happen in contradiction to one's sexual orientation: because it would not have been adaptive for a parent to only be able to bond with an opposite sex child, so the systems must have evolved independently from sexual orientation. People most often fall in love because of sexual desire, but Diamond suggests time spent together and physical touch can serve as a substitute. Diamond believes the connection between romantic love and sexual desire is "bidirectional" in that either one can cause the other to occur because of shared oxytocin pathways in the brain.[19]

Updated model

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Based on contentions over evolutionary theories and Fisher's outdated neurochemical model, Bode has suggested Fisher's model, while useful and the predominant one for a time, is oversimplified and proposes five systems:[6]

  • Sexual desire is associated with a drive to initiate and be receptive to sexual activity. Testosterone, dopamine, serotonin, norepinephrine, acetylcholine, histamine and opioids have been implicated in sexual behavior.
  • Courtship attraction is for choosing and focusing energy on a preferred mating partner and promotes courtship behaviors. It can take the form of e.g. love at first sight attraction or a crush and also be intertwined with other forms of attraction, but might not precede a relationship in all cases. Courtship attraction may be associated with dopamine, oxytocin and opioids.
  • Bonding attraction is the type of attraction for pair bond formation, characterized by a strong desire for proximity, separation anxiety when apart, exclusivity of focus and heightened awareness of the loved one. Bonding attraction is associated with dopamine and oxytocin activity, especially in the ventral tegmental area. According to Bode's arguments, this is the type of romantic attraction shown in fMRI experiments of early-stage romantic love.
  • Obsessive thinking involves preoccupation or intrusive thinking about the loved one. Some authors have drawn a comparison between this feature and obsessive-compulsive disorder, suggesting they share similar neurobiology, but the evidence for that is limited and ambiguous.
  • Attachment is for pair bond maintenance, or maintaining very close personal relationships, with psychological features like a heightened sense of responsibility, longing for reciprocity and a powerful sense of empathy. Attachment is associated with oxytocin, dopamine and opioid activity, but there is also some evidence for the involvement of vasopressin.[6]

Bode suggests that the systems of bonding attraction, obsessive thinking and attachment (the three systems which were co-opted from mother-infant bonding) together form the core of romantic love (the necessary components). However, all five systems are merged into one single phenomenon of romantic love, with a variety of different outcomes depending on the circumstances.[6]

Evolutionary psychology

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Evolutionary psychology has proposed several explanations for love. The pattern of behaviors associated today with love are prevalent throughout the animal kingdoms and beyond.[40]

Monkey infants and children are for a very long time dependent on parental help. Love has therefore been seen as a mechanism to promote mutual parental support of children for an extended time period. Another is that sexually transmitted diseases may cause, among other effects, permanently reduced fertility, injury to the fetus, and increase risks during childbirth. This would favor exclusive long-term relationships reducing the risk of contracting an STD.[41]

From the perspective of evolutionary psychology the experiences and behaviors associated with love can be investigated in terms of how they have been shaped by human evolution.[42] For example, it has been suggested that human language has been selected during evolution as a type of "mating signal" that allows potential mates to judge reproductive fitness.[43] Since Darwin's time there have been similar speculations about the evolution of human interest in music also as a potential signaling system for attracting and judging the fitness of potential mates.[44] It has been suggested that the human capacity to experience love has been evolved as a signal to potential mates that the partner will be a good parent and be likely to help pass genes to future generations.[45] Biologist Jeremy Griffith defines love as 'unconditional selflessness',[46] suggesting utterly cooperative instincts developed in modern humans' ancestor, Australopithecus. Studies of bonobos (a great ape previously referred to as a pygmy chimpanzee) are frequently cited in support of a cooperative past in humans.[47]

Mechanics

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Addiction

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The early stage of romantic love is being compared to a behavioral addiction (i.e. addiction to a non-substance) but the "substance" involved is the loved person.[48][49][12][13] One of the features of addiction is a phenomenon known as incentive salience.[50] This is the property by which cues in the environment stand out to a person and become attention-grabbing and attractive, like a "motivational magnet" which pulls a person towards a particular reward.[51][52] The phenomenon of the beloved taking on a "special meaning" to the person in love is believed to be related to heightened salience in response to the beloved.[53] Lovers also share other similarities with addicts, like tolerance, dependence, withdrawal, relapse, craving and mood modification.[12]

Incentive salience is mediated by dopamine projections in the mesocorticolimbic pathway of the brain, an area generally involved with reward, motivation and reinforcement learning.[50][52][54][21] Dopamine signaling for incentive salience originates in the ventral tegmental area (VTA) and projects to areas such as the nucleus accumbens (NAc) in the ventral striatum.[55][52] Brain scans of people in love using fMRI (commonly while looking at a photograph of their beloved) show activations in these areas like the VTA and NAc.[12][13][34] Another dopamine-rich area of the reward system shown to be active in romantic love is the caudate nucleus.[12][21] Activations in these areas are consistent with the description of romantic love as a desire or longing for union with another person, as well as consistent with the similarity between romantic love and addiction.[12][13][21]

In addiction research, a distinction is drawn between "wanting" a reward (i.e. incentive salience, tied to mesocorticolimbic dopamine) and "liking" a reward (i.e. pleasure, tied to hedonic hotspots), aspects which are dissociable.[51][52] People can be addicted to drugs and compulsively seek them out, even when taking the drug no longer results in a high or the addiction is detrimental to one's life.[12] They can also "want" (i.e. feel compelled towards, in the sense of incentive salience) something which they do not cognitively wish for.[51] In a similar way, people who are in love may "want" a loved person even when interactions with them are not pleasurable. For example, they may want to contact an ex-partner after a rejection, even when the experience will only be painful.[12] It is also possible for a person to be "in love" with somebody they do not like, or who treats them poorly.[56] Helen Fisher has proposed that romantic love is a "positive addiction" (i.e. not harmful) when requited and a "negative addiction" when unrequited or inappropriate.[12]

Research has not investigated whether romantic love shares all of the neurobiological aspects of addiction.[4] Despite similarities, there are also differences between romantic love and addiction. One of the major differences is that the trajectories diverge, with the addictive aspects tending to disappear over time during a relationship in romantic love. By comparison, in a drug addiction, the detrimental aspects magnify over time with repeated drug use, turning into compulsions, a loss of control and a negative emotional state.[13][50] Author Frank Tallis has commented that the lovers described by Dorothy Tennov (i.e. limerence, which is usually unrequited) and Shere Hite particularly resemble addicts, with the addiction over time becoming maintained more by the avoidance of pain.[48][57] Academics do not universally agree on whether or not love is always an addiction or when it needs to be treated.[58] The term "love addiction" has had an amorphous definition over the years and does not yet denote a psychiatric condition, but recently one definition has been developed that "Individuals addicted to love tend to experience negative moods and affects when away from their partners and have the strong urge and craving to see their partner as a way of coping with stressful situations."[59]

In brain scans of long-term intense romantic love (involving subjects who professed to be "madly" in love, but were together with their partner 10 years or more), attraction similar to early-stage romantic love was associated with dopamine reward center activity ("wanting"), but long-term attachment was associated with the globus palludus, a site for opiate receptors identified as a hedonic hotspot ("liking"). Long-term romantic lovers also showed lower levels of obsession compared to those in the early stage.[21][14]

Role of the limbic system

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The role of the limbic system in emotion was first explained by James Papez in 1937 within his paper titled "A proposed mechanism of emotion". The model described is known as the Papez circuit. The Papez circuit highlighted the presence of neuronal pathways between the vestibular and the limbic system.[60] The vestibular apparatus is in the inner ear and coordinates the body balance and movement. This requires extensive neuronal networking. Vestibular stimulation, which comes from the apparatus, can cause changes in mood and emotion. It can also impact emotions either independently or as part of the general limbic system networks by influencing the hypothalamus. These emotions can include extreme passivity, loss of drive/motivation, excessive eating and drinking, and rage and violent behavior.[60] Studies show Romantic Love uses reward and motivation systems to focus on a specific individual. The limbic cortical regions process individual emotion factors.[61] In A General Theory of Love, three professors of psychiatry from UCSF provide an overview of the scientific theories and findings relating to the role of the limbic system in love, attachment and social bonding. They advance the hypothesis that our nervous systems are not self-contained, but rather demonstrably attuned to those around us and those with whom we are most close. This empathy, which they call limbic resonance, is a capacity which we share, along with the anatomical characteristics of the limbic areas of the brain, with all other mammals.[62] Their work builds on previous studies of the importance of physical contact and affection in social and cognitive development, such as the experiments conducted by Harry Harlow on rhesus monkeys, which first established the biological consequences of isolation.

Brain imaging

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Brain scanning techniques such as functional magnetic resonance imaging have been used to investigate brain regions that seem to be involved in producing the human experience of love.[63]

In 2000, a study led by Semir Zeki and Andreas Bartels of University College London concluded that at least two areas of the brain become more active when in love. These were foci in the media insula, which the brain associates with instinct, and part of the anterior cingulate cortex, which is associated with feelings of euphoria.[64]

Ortigue et al. found that an unconscious prime of the name of a romantic partner activated similar brain regions as when subjects were consciously aware of seeing partners' faces.[65] Subliminal priming with either a beloved's name or a favorite hobby activated emotion and motivational brain regions: caudate nucleus, insula, bilateral fusiform regions, parahippocampal gyrus, right angular gyrus, occipital cortex, and cerebellum. However, the love prime evoked more activation in bilateral angular gyri and bilateral fusiform regions than the hobby prime. These regions are associated with integrating abstract representations, and the angular gyrus in particular is involved with abstract representations of the self. The authors also found a correlation (r=0.496, p=0.002) between activation of a region of the angular gyrus with a passionate-love scale measuring subjective feelings of love.[65]

Love and motivation

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Conscious thoughts about a romantic partner activate brain regions related to reward and motivation. Ortigue et al. investigated whether unconscious priming by a partner's name could also affect motivation. They found that priming by either a beloved or a favorite hobby improved reaction times in identifying whether a string of letters was a word or not compared against priming by a neutral friend. The authors suggest this effect happens because a beloved's name "may call for a goal-directed state" and produce "dopaminergic-driven facilitation effects."[65] Similarly, the love one feels for their friends may also be biologically motivated. Isern-Mas and Gomila argue that while the love we feel for our friends is not romantic, it is still motivated through feelings of moral obligations as well as changes in the brain resulting from prosocial experiences.[66] The common motivation whether it be love romantically or through a non-intimate companion can be connected to positive feelings and rewards that in turn, form social bonds.[67] As seen in other animals as well, the immediate connections between the love of a mother and their infant impacts their personality as they age.[68]  Harlow described love as a secondary drive for all animals, but it is essential for proper development. The animals that were left abandoned, had trouble socializing with others and often had personality issues as well.[68] The Behavioral Activation System (BAS), which plays a role in directing behavior, is believed to play a role in romantic love.[53]

See also

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References

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  1. ^ Tallis 2004, pp. 87–88, 106
  2. ^ Karandashev 2017, p. 7
  3. ^ Tallis 2004, pp. 106
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  38. ^ Hayes, Nicky (2000), Foundations of Psychology (3rd ed.), London: Thomson Learning, pp. 457–458, ISBN 1861525893: "Tennov (1979) used the term limerence to refer to a kind of infatuated, all-absorbing passion — the kind of love that Dante felt for Beatrice, or that Juliet and Romeo felt for each other. Tennov argued that an important feature of limerence is that it should be unrequited, or at least unfulfilled. It consists of a state of intense longing for the other person, in which the individual becomes more or less obsessed by that person and spends much of their time fantasising about them. [...] Tennov suggests that limerence can only really last if external conditions are such that it remains unfulfilled: it is not uncommon for people to maintain a state of limerence about someone who is unreachable for some years; but if the desired person should actually come within reach, so that the desired relationship begins, then the limerence becomes extinguished and the attraction sometimes disappears very quickly."
  39. ^ Beam 2013, pp. 72, 75: "[Tennov] discovered that many who considered themselves 'madly in love' had similar descriptions of their emotions and actions. She chose the label limerence to describe an intense longing and desire for another person that is much stronger than a simple infatuation, but not the same as a long-lived love that could last a life-time. [...] In 2002, Helen Fisher, PhD, in concert with other researchers, published the article 'Defining the Brain Systems of Lust, Romantic Attraction, and Attachment' in the Archives of Sexual Behavior. Considered a leading researcher [...], she and her research colleagues have identified several characteristics of a person who is 'madly in love,' or, as we put it, in limerence."
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  57. ^ Frankel, Valerie (2002). "The Love Drug" (web). Oprah. Archived from the original on 20 March 2024. Retrieved 19 March 2024.: 'Lay terms for limerence: romantic love, crazy love, lovesick, mad love, amour fort. You see a theme in the words crazy, sick, and mad. In this condition, one's body drugs itself mightily with hormones that create a feeling of joy. The rapture is balanced with the panic and dread that it could end. [...] "You know, some people are never limerent," Tennov says. "We don't know why, but they can't or won't experience the feeling of being madly in love. "And for the majority of limerent subjects, the feeling is unrequited. They have a horrible time."'
  58. ^ Earp, Brian D.; Wudarczyk, Olga A.; Foddy, Bennett; Savulescu, Julian (2017). "Addicted to Love: What Is Love Addiction and When Should It Be Treated?". Philosophy, Psychiatry, & Psychology. 24 (1): 77–92. doi:10.1353/ppp.2017.0011. ISSN 1086-3303. PMC 5378292. PMID 28381923.
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Bibliography

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