Love or Biological Attraction?

Valentine’s Day: A day celebrated to express your love to the respective girlfriend or boyfriend with gifts, chocolates, an outing trip or date, to make her/him feel special. But have we ever considered the true meaning of love. The so called LOVE that we speak about, is it really real or just a release of some hormones? Is it love or a mental sickness? Let’s find out…
Helen Fisher of Rutgers University in the States has proposed 3 stages of love – lust, attraction and attachment. Each stage might be driven by different hormones and chemicals.
The first stage of this great emotion is ‘Lust’ which is driven by the sex hormones testosterone and estrogen- in men and women.

The second stage is ‘Attraction’.  This is the time when you’d be called “love struck”, being unable to think about anything else but your special one. Scientists believe, there are 3 main neurotransmitters involved in this stage- adrenaline, dopamine and serotonin.
The first hormone- adrenaline- is basically a stress hormone causing responses like racing heart, sweating palms and dry mouth.

Secondly, Dopamine, which a “pleasure” hormone, stimulating ‘desire and reward’ function of the brain. This is a similar effect caused when you take drugs. The less need for sleep or food and yet an exciting and delighted mood- is a result of this hormone, secreted when you are in ‘Love’.
Finally, Serotonin- which causes the special one to dwell around your thoughts, all the time.
Dr. Donatella Marazziti, a psychiatrist at the university of Pisa, Italy, wanted to study further about it. In her study, she chose 20 couples who had been madly in love for 6 months to see if their brain mechanism of the constant thought about the lover, were similar to that of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD). And her doubts were confirmed, when the results showed, the serotonin level of the new lovers were similar to that of the OCD patients.

This ultimately, certifies, that falling in love is a mental illness, as per the researches. Perhaps, that’s why people in love tend to believe that no feelings on earth is deeper than the feelings of love.
Psychologists, however, believe that the reaction is necessary, if we have to step to the next level, which is ‘Attachment’.
Attachment is the bond that keeps couples together long enough for them to have and raise children. And the hormones involved in this case are: oxytocin and vasopressin.
The post coital hormone Oxytocin- is the hormone responsible to deepen the bond between the spouse. This hormone also helps to strengthen the bond between the mother and her baby, and is also released during child birth.

In a research done by Diane Witt, the assistant professor of psychology from New York, it was found that when the natural release of oxytocin was blocked in sheep and rats, they rejected their own children.
And likewise, injecting the hormone in the female rats who never had sex, caused them to love the young of another female, caring and protecting them as if they were their own.
Vasopressin is another important hormone in the long-term commitment stage and is released after sex. In a research performed on voles, it was found that by suppressing the effect of vasopressin in them, the bond with their respective partners deteriorated immediately, as they lost their devotion and failed to protect their partner from other suitors.
Actually, the whole process of love is a set of physical and chemical reactions in the body than anything great or exquisite. These overall thing is merely a means of preserving the bloodline, the ancestry.