Hieronymus Bosch, The Seven Deadly Sins, Lust (Detail)
Do you have friends who are dating. It always happens that in the first week, I get the call — they are in LOVE. Yes, it is pretty fast, but he’s so great, he likes hiking, and I like hiking. He wears T-shirts and I wear T-shirts. We’re so alike, I just know he’s the one. . . .
Fast forward six months or less: “Meh. He’s OK. I signed up for a new dating service, and this new guy just e mailed me, he’s a yoga instructor, how cool is that?”
Swivelchair, “I Heart Dopamine”, digital media, 2007,
All rights waived, copy or modify it all you want
Romantic love (a.k.a. lust, perhaps) happens in the same part of the brain that feels good when you get points playing a video game: the dopaminergic receptors. Hunt, point, shoot, score.
After six months, though, I wonder what happens? I’ll post another time on bonding, but that chemical, vasopressin, is what makes prairie voles mate for life.
[New: It's CD38, see Bartz JA, McInnes LA]
Now when you get dumped after the bonding has taken place,
Yasmapaz, “Cry, Cry, Cry”
(Creative Commons, share-share alike attribution license)
http://www.flickr.com/photos/yasmapaz/98715770/
Rejection, a broken heart, tears, orbitofrontal cortex. This rejected little doll is crying (play along now) due to activity in the regions of the brain related to gambling large sums, obsessive-compulsive thoughts, controlling anger, and “theory of mind” or what someone is thinking Fisher, et al, “Romantic love: a mammalian brain system for mate choice” (full abstract after the jump):
ALSO: Bartz and McInnes, “CD38 Regulates Oxytocin Secretion and Complex Social Behavior,” BioEssays 29:837-841, 2007 (full abstract after the jump).
. . . [W]e used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to study 17 people who were intensely ‘in love’. Activation specific to the beloved occurred in the brainstem right ventral tegmental area and right postero-dorsal body of the caudate nucleus.T These and other results suggest that dopaminergic reward and motivation pathways contribute to aspects of romantic love. We also used fMRI [brain scans] to study 15 men and women who had just been rejected in love. Preliminary analysis showed activity specific to the beloved in related regions of the reward system associated with monetary gambling for uncertain large gains and losses, and in regions of the lateral orbitofrontal cortex associated with theory of mind, obsessive/compulsive behaviours and controlling anger.
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1: Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci. 2006 Dec 29;361(1476):2173-86.
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Romantic love: a mammalian brain system for mate choice.
Department of Anthropology, Rutgers University, 131 George Street, New Brunswick, NJ 08901-1414, USA. helenfisher@helenfisher.com
Mammals and birds regularly express mate preferences and make mate choices. Data on mate choice among mammals suggest that this behavioural ‘attraction system’ is associated with dopaminergic reward pathways in the brain. It has been proposed that intense romantic love, a human cross-cultural universal, is a developed form of this attraction system. To begin to determine the neural mechanisms associated with romantic attraction in humans, we used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to study 17 people who were intensely ‘in love’. Activation specific to the beloved occurred in the brainstem right ventral tegmental area and right postero-dorsal body of the caudate nucleus. These and other results suggest that dopaminergic reward and motivation pathways contribute to aspects of romantic love. We also used fMRI to study 15 men and women who had just been rejected in love. Preliminary analysis showed activity specific to the beloved in related regions of the reward system associated with monetary gambling for uncertain large gains and losses, and in regions of the lateral orbitofrontal cortex associated with theory of mind, obsessive/compulsive behaviours and controlling anger. These data contribute to our view that romantic love is one of the three primary brain systems that evolved in avian and mammalian species to direct reproduction. The sex drive evolved to motivate individuals to seek a range of mating partners; attraction evolved to motivate individuals to prefer and pursue specific partners; and attachment evolved to motivate individuals to remain together long enough to complete species-specific parenting duties. These three behavioural repertoires appear to be based on brain systems that are largely distinct yet interrelated, and they interact in specific ways to orchestrate reproduction, using both hormones and monoamines. Romantic attraction in humans and its antecedent in other mammalian species play a primary role: this neural mechanism motivates individuals to focus their courtship energy on specific others, thereby conserving valuable time and metabolic energy, and facilitating mate choice.
PMID: 17118931 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]
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Bioessays. 2007 Sep;29(9):837-41.
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CD38 regulates oxytocin secretion and complex social behavior.
Mount Sinai School of Medicine, New York.
The peptide hormone oxytocin plays a critical role in regulating affiliative behaviors including mating, pair-bond formation, maternal/parenting behavior, social recognition, separation distress and other aspects of attachment. Jin and colleagues1 recently reported intriguing findings that CD38, a transmembrane receptor with ADP-ribosyl cyclase activity, plays a critical role in maternal nurturing behavior and social recognition by regulating oxytocin secretion. This research may have implications for understanding disorders marked by deficits in social cognition and social functioning, including autism, social anxiety disorder, borderline personality disorder and schizophrenia. BioEssays 29:837-841, 2007. (c) 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
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Nature. 2007 Mar 1;446(7131):41-5. Epub 2007 Feb 7.
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CD38 is critical for social behaviour by regulating oxytocin secretion.
Kanazawa University 21st Century COE Program on Innovative Brain Science on Development, Learning and Memory, Kanazawa 920-8640, Japan.
CD38, a transmembrane glycoprotein with ADP-ribosyl cyclase activity, catalyses the formation of Ca2+ signalling molecules, but its role in the neuroendocrine system is unknown. Here we show that adult CD38 knockout (CD38-/-) female and male mice show marked defects in maternal nurturing and social behaviour, respectively, with higher locomotor activity. Consistently, the plasma level of oxytocin (OT), but not vasopressin, was strongly decreased in CD38-/- mice. Replacement of OT by subcutaneous injection or lentiviral-vector-mediated delivery of human CD38 in the hypothalamus rescued social memory and maternal care in CD38-/- mice. Depolarization-induced OT secretion and Ca2+ elevation in oxytocinergic neurohypophysial axon terminals were disrupted in CD38-/- mice; this was mimicked by CD38 metabolite antagonists in CD38+/+ mice. These results reveal that CD38 has a key role in neuropeptide release, thereby critically regulating maternal and social behaviours, and may be an element in neurodevelopmental disorders.
PMID: 17287729 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]
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