Feb 15, 2007 7:26 pm US/Central
Is Love At First Sight For Real?
by Dennis Douda
(WCCO)
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Poets may profess that the heart rules love, but scientists will tell you the brain is the most romantic organ. (File)
CBS
What is it about romance that just makes us lose control? Everything looks brighter, tastes sweeter ... and, more importantly, your thinking gets foggier.
Poets may profess that the heart rules love, but scientists will tell you the brain is the most romantic organ.
"The passionate love really is that kind of 'falling in love. I didn't have any control. Love at first sight.' You have some biological changes that occur," said University of Minnesota psychologist Dr. Richelle Moen Moore.
Maybe we have a better chance of making that feeling last if we understand what's happening. Dr. Hellen Fisher, a Rutger's University anthropologist, is the author of the book "Why We Love," which documents our surges of hormones that affect how you think and feel.
"You know, I think we've derived three distinctively different brain systems for mating and reproduction," said Fisher. "One is testosterone, associated with sex drive. The second is romantic love, and we've discovered that it's associated with dopamine, a different brain chemical. And the third is attachment."
Attachment's chemical is oxytocin, which helps forge compassionate bonds in mothers for their newborns.
Moen Moore said your biology may get bored with romantic, passionate love, leaving you with "the reality of the relationships. You start noticing people's quirks. You don't have that hormone floating around."
According to Moen Moore, the notion of love at first sight is physiologically real, but it's up to us to turn it into something more.
(© MMVII, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
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