Finding love: Where love lives in the brain

We use the word “love” in a bewildering range of contexts — from sexual adoration to parental love or the love of nature. Now, more comprehensive imaging of the brain may shed light on why we use the same word for such a diverse collection of human experiences.

‘You see your newborn child for the first time. The baby is soft, healthy and hearty — your life’s greatest wonder. You feel love for the little one.’

The above statement was one of many simple scenarios presented to fifty-five parents, self-described as being in a loving relationship. Researchers utilized functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to measure brain activity while subjects mulled brief stories related to six different types of love.

What the researchers say: “We now provide a more comprehensive picture of the brain activity associated with different types of love than previous research,” said the study coordinator. “The activation pattern of love is generated in social situations in the basal ganglia, the midline of the forehead, the precuneus and the temporoparietal junction at the sides of the back of the head.”

Love for one’s children generated the most intense brain activity, closely followed by romantic love.

“In parental love, there was activation deep in the brain's reward system in the striatum area while imagining love, and this was not seen for any other kind of love,” the researchers added.

According to the research, brain activity is influenced not only by the closeness of the object of love, but also by whether it is a human being, another species or nature.

Unsurprisingly, compassionate love for strangers was less rewarding and caused less brain activation than love in close relationships. Meanwhile, love of nature activated the reward system and visual areas of the brain, but not the social brain areas.

The biggest surprise for the researchers was that the brain areas associated with love between people ended up being very similar, with differences lying primarily in the intensity of activation. All types of interpersonal love activated areas of the brain associated with social cognition, in contrast to love for pets or nature — with one exception.

Subjects’ brain responses to a statement like the following, on average, revealed whether or not they shared their life with a furry friend:

“You are home lolling on the couch and your pet cat pads over to you. The cat curls up next to you and purrs sleepily. You love your pet.”

“When looking at love for pets and the brain activity associated with it, brain areas associated with sociality statistically reveal whether or not the person is a pet owner. When it comes to the pet owners, these areas are more activated than with non-pet owners,” the lead author told us.

Love activations were controlled for in the study with neutral stories in which very little happened. For example, looking out the bus window or absent-mindedly brushing your teeth. After hearing a professional actor’s rendition of each “love story”, participants were asked to imagine each emotion for ten seconds.

Not only can understanding the neural mechanisms of love help guide philosophical discussions about the nature of love, consciousness, and human connection, but also, the researchers hope that their work will enhance mental health interventions in conditions like attachment disorders, depression or relationship issues.

So, what? There are few surprises in this study. That “love” becomes less powerful the fewer the commonalities between people—or pets—is not earth-shattering, rather it reinforces the notion that any relationship depends on two factors—a mutual satisfaction of needs (when a couple are no longer are able to meet each other’s needs the relationship is, to all intents and purposes, over) and shared commonalities such as assumptions, beliefs, physical traits (height etc.), language, experiences and rituals.

Nor is the finding of the different areas of the brain that different aspects of “love” exists very surprising, but it’s very useful to have the assumptions that most of us neuroscientists and neurogeneticists (me for example) held about the brain and love confirmed.