Research probes evolution of love

SEATTLE, Feb. 14 (UPI) -- The old saying goes that love is a many splendored thing, but a Rutgers researcher breaks it down into just three emotions: lust, infatuation and attachment.

As well, preliminary results support the idea that each of these drives may be controlled by different kinds of brain chemicals.

At the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, New Jersey anthropologist Helen Fisher says (Friday) that each of these emotions may have evolved to direct a different aspect of mate selection and reproduction.

``Each emotion system is associated with a specific brain chemistry,'' Fisher says. Sex drive, romantic love and the love between spouses are all interrelated and do occur in concert, but may also act independently.

``It is possible to feel attachment for a spouse and at the same time to feel attraction toward another individual, while directing sexual energy toward a third individual,'' Fisher says.

This brain architecture may help explain why so many people marry, cheat, divorce and then remarry.

``Perhaps it allows flexibility in the mating system. It's a bad design for modern living, but was probably an efficient design'' for early humans, Fisher says. Focusing on the infatuation stage of love, Fisher's research team has also found that the first rumblings of love -- including elation, frequent daydreaming about your heart's desire and a wish to be his or her only one -- are remarkably similar for all people, regardless of race, age, religion or sexual orientation.

Using a questionnaire, Fisher asked 276 volunteers between the ages of 18 and 90 to describe what it's like to ``be in love.''

The questionnaire revealed that many feel as though their passion is involuntary and uncontrollable. Some spend as much as 75 percent of their time thinking about the object of their attraction. Romantic lovers also experienced physiological changes like butterflies in the stomach, loss of appetite and weak knees. Many said that their moods followed the ups and downs of their romance.

Of interest to Fisher is that many of these same traits are known to be related to the action of the monoamines -- a class of brain chemicals that includes dopamine and serotonin -- on the brain.

To explore whether these chemicals really do play a role in romantic love, Fisher plans on ``putting infatuated people into a functional MRI. '' The imaging system will allow her to see what areas of the brain are active when the people are thinking about being in love.