DOPAMINE IN LOVE: BRAIN CHEMISTRY AND EMOTIONS - NEUROPSYCHOLOGY - 2024

The role of dopamine in love is especially relevant: when we are in love with someone, we experience pleasant and satisfying emotions. These emotions immediately produce a release of dopamine in the brain, so that the same emotion produces feelings of pleasure.

One of the most common arguments among those who do not "believe" in love or in the possibility of being in love with someone, is to say that love is nothing more than a chemical reaction of the brain.

This argument that many people interpret as flatly false is partly true, since love is itself an emotional reaction of people and emotions are controlled by chemical processes in the brain.

However, if we correctly examine the "quit" of the question, the entire human body functions through chemical processes. Not only does love respond to chemical reactions, but any experience can be defined through the exchange of cells and mechanisms based on brain chemistry.

With regard to emotions, the chemical processes involved are mostly found in the brain and play a very relevant role in their experimentation.

What is love?

Love is a universal concept related to the affinity between human beings. This concept can be defined through different points of view, both artistic and scientific, philosophical or religious. It is usually interpreted as a feeling related to affection and attachment.

In addition, these feelings are the ones that originate a series of attitudes such as kindness, compassion or care, and a series of behaviors that aim to express and externalize the emotions of love that are experienced.

When we talk about love we are referring to a series of emotions and feelings. These feelings are experienced in the brain regions, provoke a series of thoughts and originate a great number of organic and behavioral modifications.

However, the aspect that allows us to understand why brain chemistry plays an important role in the development of love is that it deals with a specific mental state that is characterized by experiencing a series of emotions and feelings.

What role does chemistry play in love?

All the feelings and all the emotions that human beings have are modulated by the functioning of the brain. In fact, all the thoughts, ideas, beliefs, attitudes, behaviors or behaviors that we perform also attend to the functioning of the brain.

If we were exquisite, we could even affirm the ability to walk, the fact of being hungry, being able to see or smell, or many other actions, are also controlled by the activity of the mind.

However, in order not to complicate ourselves further, we will focus on the functioning of emotions and feelings, since love is precisely that, a series of emotions and feelings that are usually experienced with remarkable intensity.

Taking into account the emotions, it must be taken into account that the fact that a depression, an anxiety disorder or a bipolar disorder can be treated with drugs means that these pathologies are regulated by chemical processes.

The same serves to explain the feelings of love, since this emotion is experienced when a series of brain chemical processes are activated.

There are thousands of chemicals in the brain, and each of them allows us to do or experience something. While certain substances can enable us to see, walk, or reason, others allow us to experience emotions, sensations, and feelings.

In this idea lies the relationship between chemistry and love, since this emotion, like all the others, is experienced through a series of brain mechanisms.

What substances participate in love?

The feelings of love release various chemical compounds and hormones that are responsible for producing the experimentation of a series of certain emotions.

Love mainly releases dopamine, serotonin, and oxytocin. This chemical process explains that the feelings of falling in love are more intense at the beginning and later they decline.

The decrease in excitement or intense emotions should not be interpreted as a "falling out" or as a decrease in feelings of love, but as a normal process of the brain.

The brain activity that love produces in the beginning is very new and exciting. However, as time goes by, the brain gets used to these chemical modifications and the sensations may be less intense.

The main chemical structures that are responsible for producing these feelings of love are:

1- Oxytocin

It is about a substance secreted by the body that is responsible for releasing transmitters such as dopamine, norepinephrine or serotonin.

Humans produce this substance constantly but there are certain situations that cause an increase or decrease in oxytocin. Love produces an increase in oxytocin.

When we are in love we release greater amounts of this substance, so the neurotransmitters that oxytocin modulates also increase in our brain regions.

2- Serotonin

Serotonin is known as the neurotransmitter of happiness since, among many other actions, this chemical substance performs the function of acting on emotions and mood.

It is responsible for well-being, it generates feelings of optimism, good humor and sociability, so the greater amounts of serotonin we release, the greater feelings of happiness we experience.

In fact, most antidepressants work by increasing the release of this substance in order to increase mood.

Positive experiences and pleasant situations produce a release of serotonin in the brain, so when we experience love emotions, serotonin levels increase.

3- Dopamine

Dopamine is a substance that is mainly related to pleasure and plays an important role in pleasurable actions such as eating, having sexual relations, consuming certain drugs.

In this way, pleasant experiences are translated in the brain into a greater release of dopamine, which is why the emotions of love increase the levels of these substances in the brain.

What exactly is dopamine?

Dopamine is a neurotransmitter, that is, a substance in the brain that is responsible for connecting neurons to each other. These substances are distributed in multiple brain regions and, in each area, they perform a different activity.

Above all, dopamine, located in the pleasure and reward system, stands out, a region of the brain that is responsible for precisely this, to provide feelings of pleasure.

These regions are activated by any stimulus perceived as pleasant. For example, if we eat when we are really hungry or drink when we are very thirsty, our brain immediately produces a greater release of dopamine in these regions.

Chemical structure of dopamine

The release of dopamine is automatically translated into a sensation of pleasure, so our brain reinforces the behavior since it interprets it as pleasant thanks to the substance released.

This brain mechanism is what explains addictions, either to substances or to any type of action. In this way, when we smoke, for example, the nicotine in cigarettes produces a release of dopamine in the pleasure and reward regions.

If you smoke frequently, this release of dopamine will also occur repeatedly, so the brain will get used to releasing this substance on a regular basis and we will create an addiction to tobacco.

Leaving drugs aside, dopamine is released whenever we do something that is pleasant. Therefore, those things that we find pleasant when doing them, we will interpret them as such and we will try to do them whenever we can to feel good.

Dopamine and love

The same mechanism that we have discussed about dopamine regarding drug use may be applicable to love. When we are in love with someone, we experience pleasant and satisfying emotions.

These emotions immediately produce a release of dopamine in the brain, so that the same emotion produces feelings of pleasure. This brain mechanism could explain the maintenance of this type of emotions and feelings.

That is, if our brain did not release dopamine in the aspects related to love, we probably would not reinforce this emotion and perhaps we would not want to maintain it.

In other words, when we kiss our partner and perform a behavior that allows us to express the emotions of love, dopamine fires in our brain.

The increase of this substance in the brain regions is the main factor that motivates the appearance of pleasure sensations at those times, so it acts as a mental mechanism that does not indicate that we like what we are doing.

Love addiction

Love relationships are built on many other things than a simple brain chemical reaction. However, the release of dopamine plays a very important role at the individual level, that is, when a person experiences emotions of love.

The sensations of pleasure that we mentioned earlier could explain part of the need that a person in love has to see the person they love or be with them.

The brain of the individual knows that when he is with his partner he will release greater amounts of dopamine, so he will seek these situations to experience pleasure.

Saving the distances (which are many), love can motivate the search for this emotion and the desire to be with the loved one in the same way that drugs can motivate the addict to consume.

In both cases, what is produced is an increase in the sensations of pleasure based on an external stimulus, modulated by the release of dopamine.

This comparison can be a bit extreme since obviously, the changes produced by drugs in the functioning of dopamine in the brain are very different from those produced by feelings of love.

However, they serve to exemplify how these types of feelings are experienced thanks to the production of chemical modifications in the brain. Therefore, dopamine can largely explain the emotions of love in humans.

Dopamine and heartbreak

Finally, the functioning of this substance in the experimentation of emotions and feelings of love raises a final question: the role that dopamine plays when love or the relationship ends.

At the end of an affective relationship, a low mood and certain symptoms usually appear. The person may feel sad, discouraged, nervous, not wanting to do anything, without motivation or without enthusiasm for things.

Analyzing love as an object and concept, it can be concluded that these feelings are caused by the loss of a loved one, the experience of a loss situation or the desire to have something that is no longer possessed.

However, without having to objectify what was stated in the previous paragraph, these moments can also be analyzed from the cerebral point of view.

When love ends, dopamine decreases

As we have said, every sensation, emotion and feeling is produced by the functioning of a series of chemical compounds in the brain. Thus, when feelings of sadness are experienced after a breakup, they also respond to certain substances in the brain.

By being with someone, we get used to our brain to release certain levels of dopamine. When the relationship ends, these dopamine levels disappear, since the external stimulus that motivated them is no longer present.

At these times, the opposite sensations to those produced by high dopamine levels appear, which is why unpleasant and sad feelings are experienced.

Therefore, returning to bridge the gap, this brain reaction can be similar to what a person addicted to a substance experiences when they stop using.

The addict experiences malaise and the typical dependence known as mono when he stops taking the drug to which he is addicted mainly because he needs to restore his dopamine levels.

In love, the effects are less clear, but the obsession or highly unpleasant sensations that appear after a breakup, may also respond, in part, to these changes in the functioning of brain chemicals.

References

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