Amazing stuff! Very impressive!
Maybe it takes Finnish scientists finishing the quest to find love in the brain. Just kidding!
In short: Love is everywhere! These scientists were having a love affair of sorts! 😊
"... ‘The activation pattern of love is generated in social situations in the basal ganglia, the midline of the forehead, the precuneus and the temporoparietal junction at the sides of the back of the head.’
Love for one’s children generated the most intense brain activity, closely followed by romantic love. ..."
From the abstract:
"Feelings of love are among the most significant human phenomena. Love informs the formation and maintenance of pair bonds, parent-offspring attachments, and influences relationships with others and even nature. However, little is known about the neural mechanisms of love beyond romantic and maternal types. Here, we characterize the brain areas involved in love for six different objects: romantic partner, one’s children, friends, strangers, pets, and nature. We used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to measure brain activity, while we induced feelings of love using short stories. Our results show that neural activity during a feeling of love depends on its object. Interpersonal love recruited social cognition brain areas in the temporoparietal junction and midline structures significantly more than love for pets or nature. In pet owners, love for pets activated these same regions significantly more than in participants without pets. Love in closer affiliative bonds was associated with significantly stronger and more widespread activation in the brain’s reward system than love for strangers, pets, or nature. We suggest that the experience of love is shaped by both biological and cultural factors, originating from fundamental neurobiological mechanisms of attachment."
Finding love: Study reveals where love lives in the brain (original news release) "Researchers have taken looking for love to a whole new level, revealing that different types of love light up different parts of the brain."
Six types of loves differentially recruit reward and social cognition brain areas (open access)
The image represents a statistical average of how different types of love light up different regions of the brain.
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