People Fall in Love, Brain and Soul

Published October 27, 2010


When it comes to falling in love, the brain may be just as involved as the heart, new research finds.

Stephanie Ortigue of Syracuse University and her colleagues reviewed and ran statistical analyses on past brain research aimed at understanding love and found that 12 areas of your brain seem to be working together when just a glimpse at Mr. Right or Ms. Right makes you swoon.

Ortigue said the analysis, detailed in a recent issue of the Journal of Sexual Medicine, will be followed up by a study that suggests it takes about a fifth of a second to fall in love. That study has been submitted to a scientific journal and is expected to be released soon.

While "love is one of the most important concepts in life," Ortigue said it is not well understood. "As a scientist I wanted to bring some rationality to the irrational, and to see if love exists in the brain," Ortigue told LiveScience.

The team found that when a person falls in love, different areas of the brain release euphoria-inducing chemicals such as dopamine, oxytocin (the so-called love hormone), adrenaline and vasopressin (known from animal studies to cause aggression and territorial behavior).

Other studies have suggested blood levels of nerve growth factor (NGF), a protein that plays a role in the survival and maintenance of brain cells, also increase. Those levels were found to be significantly higher in couples who had just fallen in love. Ortigue said this molecule also plays an important role in the social chemistry between humans, or the phenomenon of love at first sight.

"These results confirm love has a scientific basis," she added


Rest of the story                             http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2010/10/27/people-fall-love-brain-soul/?test=latestnews

The heart has absolutely nothing to do with emotion. It's a pump, period.

For some... it takes a fifth of a second to fall out of love too..

'Heart' is symbolic for different attributes of ones character. Namely, heart in reference to the phrase, is about desire, motivation and inspiration and passion. Everybody has a heart, but not everybody has 'heart'. Heart equals soul

Some say heart I say Penis

Endorphins are a helluva drug.