Loooooove ... Love Is Strange

Jesse Walker | June 8, 2004

Scientists take a look at love. Their conclusions:

Among other areas, parts of the pre-frontal cortex -- a bit of the brain towards the front and implicated in social judgment -- seems to get switched off when we are in love and when we love our children, as do areas linked with the experience of negative emotions such as aggression and fear as well as planning. The parts of the brain deactivated form a network which are implicated in the evaluation of trustworthiness of others and basically critical social assessment....

Now neuroscience is telling us that our brains dumb down and rule our hearts so we rush into sex, then produce children whom we also continue to care for no matter how little they reciprocate.

It would seem that one of love's mysteries has at last been cracked by science -- if we used our brains to their full capacity all the time and didn't deactivate clear thinking and critical judgment, the species would never have got off the ground.

[Via Lew Rockwell.]

Comments

|6.8.04 @ 1:00AM|#

When that chick bent over, I forgot my name...

Now I know why.

Thanks, Jesse

And it's also good to know that all those jokes about men thinking with their wee knees were just plain bogus.

Igauana|6.8.04 @ 1:03AM|#

And I thought it was just biology.

garym|6.8.04 @ 1:16AM|#

That could explain why technonerdboys do so poorly at romance; we don't know how to turn our brains off!

Mo|6.8.04 @ 1:35AM|#

Intelligence is attractive and you're smarter when you're not in love. This explains why people are attracted to people that don't love them, they're smarter.

|6.8.04 @ 2:14AM|#

"I think science will one day show us that being in love is indistinguishable from being high, and in fact, worse."

Do we really need science to show us what Sweet showed us more than 25 years ago? -

Love is like oxygen
You get too much you get too high
Not enough and you're gonna die
Love gets you high

Ken Layne|6.8.04 @ 2:27AM|#

Dude, a lyric from Sweet! That's sweet!

The study makes sense to me. How many times have you broken up with somebody and said -- to yourself and anybody else who would listen -- "What the hell was I thinking?"

Turns out you weren't thinking at all, that's what! Or, to quote the Rolling Stones doing a Stevie Wonder song:

Always treat me like a fool
Kick me when I`m down, that's your rule
I don't know why I love you, but I love ya
You never stop your
Cheatin' ways with another guy
You laugh in my face
Lord how long must I be disgraced
Cause I love you
Oh baby, baby, darlin', darlin', etc.

|6.8.04 @ 2:28AM|#

This study has social policy implications.

If you are a firm lover of Jesus H Christ, and by proxy the president, you might not see the faults of the guy and/or christianity.

If you are a firm lover of libero-progressive ideals (e.g. the value of diversity), you might not see the faults fo those ideals.

If you approach politics with a keen intellect and hard edged logic, you become a libertarian.

If you fall in love with political causes, you become a democrat or a republican. It's one way to explain how those folks can put up with such inconsistancies in their party's political platforms.

hmmm....

|6.8.04 @ 2:30AM|#

I thought you were going to quote from 'Ballroom Blitz.'

|6.8.04 @ 3:29AM|#

Why should it be obvious that any parts of the brain have reduced activity while in love.

Surely you've noticed that otherwise-intelligent people tend to lose their critical reasoning abilities when it comes to people they love? For example, how many times have we seen parents refuse to concede that their children are guilty of a crime they obviously committed? How many times do a woman's friends figure out that her husband or boyfriend is cheating on her long before she figures it out herself? Etc, etc.

my thoughts usually race a mile a minute when I'm in love

Yeah, but how many of them are coherent, rational thoughts? :)

|6.8.04 @ 3:33AM|#

"If you approach politics with a keen intellect and hard edged logic, you become a libertarian."

jesus fuck kitten, could you be more self congratulatory? :)

i understand, though, metioning libertarianism positively in nyc is less socially acceptable than having aids by a long, long while.

|6.8.04 @ 7:15AM|#

Ken, I finally bought that record for my wife. She's been talking about it for a long time. Not bad, not bad at all.

|6.8.04 @ 7:38AM|#

Love is a grave mental illness.

|6.8.04 @ 7:42AM|#

Love is a snowmobile racing across the tundra and then suddenly it flips over, pinning you underneath. At night, the ice weasels come.

Franklin Harris|6.8.04 @ 10:45AM|#

Once again, science confirms the obvious.

|6.8.04 @ 10:46AM|#

Every parent knows parental love is blind - it's proved when you meet your friend's kids.

|6.8.04 @ 10:52AM|#

This blows away one of the many lies women tell when they talk about relationships: "Women find intelligence very attractive." Anyone who thinks that committing yourself to ONE person and enslaving yourself to child rearing is a desirable option MUST be stupid.

David 2|6.8.04 @ 11:37AM|#

So does that mean that being a parent is a form of diminished capacity? Oh does that open a can of worms!

Let's see...

"Gee officer, it wasn't my fault that I plowed into the car in front of me... I was thinking about how much I LOVE my children!"

"Oh I know that I blew all my money on expensive soccer courses and gear for my children and I can't pay the mortgage or the car loans, but it's not my fault! Really! I LOVE my children!"

Or maybe it can work the other way... we have the government arresting drivers for talking on the cellphone, not having their seat bels on, or having one drink too many. Now we can charge them with "driving while PARENTING!"

|6.8.04 @ 11:54AM|#

Women driving with children = lethal

I'm a cyclist.

|6.8.04 @ 12:15PM|#

You want to try something fun?

Read the article, and replace "in love with" with "high on" and "children/romantic partner" with "[random schedule I substance]."

Holy crap! It's a NIDA press release.

I think science will one day show us that being in love is indistinguishable from being high, and in fact, worse. At the very least such people shouldn't be allowed to drive.

|6.8.04 @ 12:21PM|#

"Once again, science confirms the obvious."

I don't think the conclusions of the report are obvious in any way. Why should it be obvious that any parts of the brain have reduced activity while in love. It certainly doesn't feel that way--my thoughts usually race a mile a minute when I'm in love. It's furthermore not obvious that these specific areas would have to be implicated, rather than smaller regulatory areas. Certainly the high-level "love makes you lose view of what's genuinely important, and causes obsession" conlusions are obvious, but the scientists weren't looking at those...

Mark: I generally find women much more attractive if they show some kind of intelligence. And I'm much more likely to fall in love with someone to whom I'm attracted.

|6.8.04 @ 12:21PM|#

mark, out of the basements, into the sheets!

seriously.

|6.8.04 @ 12:25PM|#

yeah, i married my wife cause she has more books than i do and an entire series of t-shirts featuring chaucer characters. and those damn sexy librarian glasses. and like, some other shit too...

|6.8.04 @ 12:29PM|#

I can't get it out of my head...

Two brain scans: the regular brain, and the love-besotted brain (full of holes and grey "inactive" areas) juxtaposed.

Underneath in big blurry font:

HARMLESS?

|6.8.04 @ 12:52PM|#

Mencken said love was basically an anaesthetic.

My own contribution would be that it isn't a feeling. When you take the kids to the dentist you're not feeling. You just do it.

The kids' job is not to reciprocate love but to plan escape. This they do starting around age one and a half. If you want reciprocation, there are dogs. They grow closer as they get older rather than the opposite. Vicki Hearne wrote that somewhere.