While all forms of love share some common neural pathways, there are marked differences in how the brain processes these various types of affection.
- Romantic love and parental love, often considered the most intense forms of love, most strongly activate the brain areas of reward and social cognition.
- These same brain regions were also used in people who had pets.
- Love of nature activated unique brain areas, specifically associated with visual processing and spatial perception, not found in other forms of love.
Feelings of love, that is, attachment, affection, emotional and sexual attraction, are among the most significant human phenomena. Love is at the origin of the formation and maintenance of couple bonds, of the attachment of parents to their child and influences relationships with others.. “However, little is known about the neural mechanisms of love beyond romantic and maternal types,” said researchers from Aalto University (Finland).
That’s why the scientists decided to conduct a study in which they wanted to characterize the areas of the brain involved in six different types of love: romantic love, parental love, friendly love, love for strangers, love for pets, and love for nature. The team asked adults to tell short stories or anecdotes related to six different types of love while they used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to measure their brain activity.
Neural activity during feelings of love depends on who you think of
“The activation pattern of love is generated in social situations in the basal ganglia, midline of the forehead, precuneus and temporo-parietal junction on the sides of the back of the head,” explained Partly Rinnelead author of the work published in the journal Cerebral CortexScientists have observed that brain activity is influenced not only by the proximity of the object of love, but also by whether it is a human being, another species or nature.
According to the research, love for children generated the most intense brain activity, followed closely by romantic love. “In the case of parental love, we observe a profound activation of the brain’s reward system in the striatum area when we imagine love, which is not the case for other forms of love.” Compassionate love for strangers was less rewarding and elicited less brain activation than love in relationships that included close friends.
“The experience of love is shaped by biological and cultural factors”
In pet owners, love for pets activated brain areas related to reward and social cognition significantly more than in participants who did not have pets. Love of nature, on the other hand, activated the reward system and visual areas of the brain, but not the social areas of the brain.
“We conclude that the experience of love is shaped by biological and cultural factors, stemming from the fundamental neurobiological mechanisms of attachment,” wrote the authors, who hope their work will help improve mental health interventions in situations such as attachment disorders, depression or relationship problems.
