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Speaker 1: Hey, please take a second and leave us a review

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Speaker 1: on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to the podcast.

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Speaker 1: Thanks a lot. Hey, welcome to Sign Stuff, a production

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Speaker 1: of iHeartRadio Hoorheit Cham And today we're answering the question

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Speaker 1: is love and addiction? What's going on inside of our

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Speaker 1: brains when we think of our loved ones, our spouses,

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Speaker 1: our kids, our friends. We're going to dig into the

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Speaker 1: signs of love, looking at how psychologists and neuroscientists have

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Speaker 1: tried to understand it and measure it, and we're going

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Speaker 1: to ask the question, if love is addicting, can you

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Speaker 1: manipulate it with drugs? So get ready to fall in

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Speaker 1: love with the signs of love as we might as

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Speaker 1: well face it. Are we addicted to love? Hey? Everyone,

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Speaker 1: Today we have a different kind of episode. It's thanksgeping

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Speaker 1: Weak and I'm spending time with my family, So I'm

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Speaker 1: going to play for you a chapter from the audiobook

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Speaker 1: of my latest nonfiction book, Out of Your Mind, which

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Speaker 1: I wrote with neuroscientist Dwayne Godwin. You know doctor Godwin.

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Speaker 1: He's been on the show several times. And in this chapter,

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Speaker 1: we ask the question why do we love? And we

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Speaker 1: look at the evidence that says that love is basically

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Speaker 1: an addiction. It's one of my favorite chapters in the

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Speaker 1: book because it goes into the whole history of how

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Speaker 1: scientists have tried to get a handle on this lovely topic.

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Speaker 1: And hey, if you like the chapter, be sure to

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Speaker 1: check out the rest of the book. You can find

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Speaker 1: Out of Your Mind in stores everywhere. Okay, the chapter

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Speaker 1: starts with a quote from William Shakespeare, and the first

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Speaker 1: question we tackle is whether humans are the only animals

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Speaker 1: dad love. Here's Professor Dwayne Godwin reading from Out of Your.

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Speaker 2: Mind, Chapter two, Why do we love? Love looks not

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Speaker 2: with the eyes, but with the mind, and therefore is

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Speaker 2: winged Cupid painted blind? William Shakespeare A Midsummer Night's Dream.

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Speaker 2: William Shakespeare may not have been a neuroscientist, but he

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Speaker 2: certainly knew a lot about human emotion. His plays tell

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Speaker 2: stories of human love in its many forms, Young irrational love,

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Speaker 2: Omeo and Juliet, the love between parents and their children, Kinglear,

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Speaker 2: and even the love of country Julius Caesar. To many,

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Speaker 2: love may seem like the quintessential human emotion, but actually

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Speaker 2: humans are not alone in showing signs of love. In

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Speaker 2: the case of romantic love. About four percent of mammals

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Speaker 2: pair up in lifelong monogamous couples. We share that distinction

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Speaker 2: with prairie voles and beavers, among a few others, and

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Speaker 2: up to ninety five percent of birds do. The majority

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Speaker 2: of complex animals on the planet exhibits some form of

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Speaker 2: care and devotion to their young. Palaeontologists have even found

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Speaker 2: fossils of dinosaur mothers that seemingly died while protecting their

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Speaker 2: nest of eggs. At the same time, the human experience

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Speaker 2: of love appears to be more vexing and complex than

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Speaker 2: mere instinct. At the very least, it seems to be

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Speaker 2: more dramatic. After all, how many beavers or birds of

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Speaker 2: written sonnets or entire operas detailing the impossible situations that

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Speaker 2: love puts us in. If you ask around, most people

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Speaker 2: will tell you that love is a feeling. It's what

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Speaker 2: you feel when you look at your spouse, or your child,

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Speaker 2: or your parents are the people who are close to you.

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Speaker 2: It's the urge you feel to be near them, to

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Speaker 2: care for them, and to make sure they're safe and happy. Unfortunately,

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Speaker 2: these days, we also use the word to describe how

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Speaker 2: we feel about a lot of things. We use it

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Speaker 2: for objects love your shoes, food, who doesn't love pie?

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Speaker 2: And even abstract concepts. I love democracy. Clearly, it's hyperbole

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Speaker 2: unless you actually feel the same way about shoes as

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Speaker 2: you do about your kids or your spouse. But what

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Speaker 2: is that feeling of love? How is it encoded in

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Speaker 2: the brain? Is there a trigger for falling into it?

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Speaker 2: Though love may seem like the stuff of literature or

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Speaker 2: sappy poems, psychologists and neuroscientists have been probing its mysteries

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Speaker 2: for over eighty years, and with modern technology they've started

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Speaker 2: to answer a few key questions about the loving brain,

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Speaker 2: including these. Is there an area in the brain devoted

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Speaker 2: to love? Does a love chemical exist? Do I really

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Speaker 2: love pie the same way I love my kids? Interestingly,

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Speaker 2: the answer to all of these questions, including the third one,

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Speaker 2: is sort of. Love is a many splendid thing. So

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Speaker 2: let's take a dive and fall madly into its biological complexities.

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Speaker 2: Trust us, you're going to love it. The love scales.

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Speaker 2: The history of love research starts in the nineteen forties. Psychologists,

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Speaker 2: eager to prove their metal is scientists, started to tackle

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Speaker 2: complex human emotions with more exacting methods The problem was

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Speaker 2: that they didn't have the technology to peer into people's brains,

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Speaker 2: and unlike basic skills like language or movement, there were

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Speaker 2: no cases, at least at the time, of people with

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Speaker 2: clear brain injuries that prevented them from loving or being lovable,

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Speaker 2: so they had to resort to the same method most

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Speaker 2: of us use. To figure out how anyone feels, they

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Speaker 2: had to ask. Of course, people are notoriously unreliable when

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Speaker 2: it comes to knowing their own feelings or reading the

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Speaker 2: feelings of others, so for psychologists, the first order of

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Speaker 2: business was to standardize the set of questions one would

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Speaker 2: ask to find out if someone felt love or not.

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Speaker 2: The goal is to be able to measure love in

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Speaker 2: a person so that you can then do scientific studies

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Speaker 2: with that information. For example, if you can figure out

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Speaker 2: that a group of people definitely loves their spouses and

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Speaker 2: that another group definitely doesn't, you might then look at

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Speaker 2: the two groups to see where that difference could be

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Speaker 2: coming from. It could be something inherent about the person

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Speaker 2: or something external. In psychology, the go to tools for

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Speaker 2: measuring complex emotions like love are called scales. Basically, they

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Speaker 2: are questionnaires that pose a series of statements and then

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Speaker 2: ask you to rache your response depending on how much

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Speaker 2: you agree or disagree with those statements. For example, one

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Speaker 2: questionnaire might say true love lasts forever and then ask

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Speaker 2: you to pick a number between one and ten. One

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Speaker 2: equals strongly disagree, ten equals strongly agree, depending on how

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Speaker 2: you feel about that. Other questionnaires might have statements like

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Speaker 2: I would rather be with my partner than anyone else,

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Speaker 2: or I would feel deep despair if I couldn't be

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Speaker 2: with this person, depending on whether you want to measure

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Speaker 2: a person's attitude or experience with love. In this way,

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Speaker 2: a scale could get a rough measure of how you

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Speaker 2: feel about love, whether you experience it in your life,

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Speaker 2: and how often you experience it, whether you think it's

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Speaker 2: a positive thing, whether you feel it toward a particular person, etc.

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Speaker 2: It's not that different from one of those pop quizes

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Speaker 2: you might find in a fashion or a romance magazine,

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Speaker 2: with the key difference of added scientific rigor. Psychologists take

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Speaker 2: great care to make sure that the scales are reliable

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Speaker 2: so the results don't depend on the person's momentary mood

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Speaker 2: or immediate circumstances, and valid so the results actually measure

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Speaker 2: what you're trying to measure. It's not a perfect assessment,

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Speaker 2: but short of being able to read someone's mind, it's

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Speaker 2: the best anyone can do. Over the years, lots of

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Speaker 2: psychologists proposed many different love scales with names like the

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Speaker 2: Caring Relationship's Inventory or the Romantic Acts Questionnaire, and over

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Speaker 2: the years a few have risen to the top in

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Speaker 2: terms of their popularity or perception as being the most reliable.

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Speaker 2: Each of them has two things in common with the others. One,

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Speaker 2: they are based on a theory that breaks down the

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Speaker 2: different kinds of love, and two, they recognize that love

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Speaker 2: is not just a feeling, but a combination of rational thoughts, emotions,

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Speaker 2: and behaviors. For example, Robert Sternberg's triangular theory of love

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Speaker 2: scale assumes that love is a mix of three basic ingredients, passion, closeness,

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Speaker 2: and commitment. For passion, it might ask you to weigh

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Speaker 2: in on statements like I find this person to be

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Speaker 2: very personally attractive, while for closeness, it might pose to

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Speaker 2: you I share deeply personal information with this person. The

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Speaker 2: idea is to make a model that maps all of

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Speaker 2: the different kinds of love that people experience. Are you

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Speaker 2: committed to someone and feel close to them but are

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Speaker 2: not attracted to them, Then you are feeling companionate love

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Speaker 2: i e. Platonic or friend love. Do you have the

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Speaker 2: hots for someone but don't particularly want to be close

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Speaker 2: or committed to them, Then you are feeling good old

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Speaker 2: infatuation love. Do you feel attracted to someone and feel

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Speaker 2: close to them and want to commit long term to them,

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Speaker 2: Then you hit the jackpot and found consummate love. Another

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Speaker 2: well accepted scale, Elaine Hatfield and Susan Sprecker's Passionate Love

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Speaker 2: Scale or PLS, measures romantic love and more explicitly breaks

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Speaker 2: down love into rational thoughts, emotions, and behaviors. For example,

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Speaker 2: if my post statements like for me, this person is

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Speaker 2: the perfect romantic partner. To see what you think of

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Speaker 2: that person, I melt when looking deeply into their eyes,

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Speaker 2: to see how you feel about them, and I can't

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Speaker 2: stop thinking about this person. To measure how it affects

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Speaker 2: your actions, add up your scores for all thirty of

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Speaker 2: the scale statements that should tell you how much you

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Speaker 2: love that person. If it was between one hundred and

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Speaker 2: six and one hundred and thirty five points, you're wildly,

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Speaker 2: even recklessly in love. Between eighty six and one hundred

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Speaker 2: and five points, passionate but less intense, sixty six to

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Speaker 2: eighty five points occasional burst of passion, forty five to

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Speaker 2: sixty five points, tepit infrequent passion, and fifteen to forty

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Speaker 2: four points the thrill is gone. Psychologists have been using

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Speaker 2: scales like this to try to get a handle on

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Speaker 2: what it means to be in love and where it

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Speaker 2: comes from. For example, in one study, researchers asked men

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Speaker 2: and women from different cultures white people in the US, Japanese,

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Speaker 2: and Filipinos to take the PLS Survey. The goal was

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Speaker 2: to test whether Eastern and Western cultures loved or thought

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Speaker 2: about bove in the same way. They found that the

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Speaker 2: scores of love intensity were not that different between different groups,

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Speaker 2: underscoring the idea that is indeed a universal feeling. Of course,

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Speaker 2: these scales only give us a view of love from

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Speaker 2: the outside looking in. They don't actually tell us what's

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Speaker 2: going on inside someone's brain. But these scales prove to

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Speaker 2: be very important when the technology to do so finally

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Speaker 2: became available.

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Speaker 1: All right, So that is the beginning of the search

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Speaker 1: for love d least the beginning of the scientific search

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Speaker 1: for love. It's a feeling and you can learn a

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Speaker 1: lot about it and nap it by simply asking people. Now,

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Speaker 1: the question is what is actually going on inside your

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Speaker 1: brain when you feel love? Is there a love part

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Speaker 1: of your brain? When we come back, we're going to

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Speaker 1: get into the neuroscience of love and figure out which

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Speaker 1: areas of the brain are involved and whether any of

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Speaker 1: them are related to addiction. Stay with us, we'll be

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Speaker 1: right back. Welcome back. We're talking about the science of

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Speaker 1: love and whether love is an addiction. So far, we've

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Speaker 1: learned what love is and how the feeling of it

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Speaker 1: maps to different versions of the love we all experience.

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Speaker 1: Now we're going to ask what's happening in the brain

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Speaker 1: when we love. It turns out love is actually something

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Speaker 1: you can do fMRI experiments on. Here is Professor Dwaine

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Speaker 1: Godwin reading from the book we've wrote together called Out

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Speaker 1: of Your Mind.

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Speaker 2: Scanning for Love. In the nineteen nineties, a brain scanning

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Speaker 2: method called functional magnetic resonance imaging fMRI opened a new

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Speaker 2: window into the brain the fMRI revolution. By the nineteen twenties,

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Speaker 2: doctors knew that different areas of the brain corresponded to

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Speaker 2: different functions Functional magnetic resonance imaging fMRI. Let's just see

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Speaker 2: how these are used in real time. The machine works

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Speaker 2: by measuring the oxygen consumed by active neurons. When neurons

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Speaker 2: use oxygen, it changes the magnetic properties of the hemoglobin

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Speaker 2: in your blood. This causes distortions and how the surrounding

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Speaker 2: water reacts to strong magnetic fields and pulses. By measuring

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Speaker 2: how this energy fluctuates, the machine can tell which brain

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Speaker 2: areas are using more oxygen than others. But it's not

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Speaker 2: fool proof, and two thousand and nine scientists scanned dead

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Speaker 2: salmon and got what looked like a live signal. fMRI

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Speaker 2: machines are able to take a picture of your whole

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Speaker 2: brain and highlight the parts that are active at any

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Speaker 2: given time with millimeter precision. Up to the two thousands,

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Speaker 2: fMRI scans have been used to reliably pinpoint areas that

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Speaker 2: were mapped by electrical probes, confirming from previous studies where

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Speaker 2: the brain's areas for sensing and moving were. Now the

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Speaker 2: question was whether they could map more complicated functions, emotions,

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Speaker 2: and even love. Would they show that the brain has

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Speaker 2: a love area or is love too complicated to narrow

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Speaker 2: answer is a little of both. To find out, neuroscientists

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Speaker 2: came up with an experiment in which test subjects were

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Speaker 2: they loved. We know they loved these people because the

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Speaker 2: subjects rated them highly on the PLS Love Scale, which

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Speaker 2: they filled out before the experiment. As of control, the

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Speaker 2: subjects were also shown photos of friends and acquaintances who

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Speaker 2: weren't rated highly on the love scale. This way, neuroscientists

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Speaker 2: could measure their brain activity when feelings of love were triggered,

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Speaker 2: and they could reliably assume that it was love from

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Speaker 2: the Love scale data. As you might expect from a

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Speaker 2: complex emotion, lots of areas of the brain lit up,

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Speaker 2: but in particular, neuroscientists saw intriguing activity in three specif

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Speaker 2: as that give us clues as to how our brain

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Speaker 2: processes being in love. The first area they saw light

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Speaker 2: up is called the insula. The insula, which means island

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Speaker 2: in Latin, is an interesting part of what is known

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Speaker 2: as the limbic cortex. It's an area that is folded

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Speaker 2: up deep within the side of your brain. You can't

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Speaker 2: see it from the typical surface view, and it's thought

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Speaker 2: to be where emotions and empathy are processed. When this

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Speaker 2: area is destroyed, as happens for example, with a brain

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Speaker 2: disorder called fronto temporal dementia, people seem to have a

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Speaker 2: harder time controlling their emotions, and they seem to lose

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Speaker 2: the ability to perceive the emotions of others, otherwise known

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Speaker 2: as empathy. This makes sense because love is an emotion,

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Speaker 2: and because empathy is critical to love. Putting ourselves in

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Speaker 2: other people's shoes and caring for others are integral parts

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Speaker 2: of what it means to love. An area where neuroscientists

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Speaker 2: noticed interesting activity is called the amygdala. The amygdalae are

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Speaker 2: a pair of nugget like bundles of neurons deep in

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Speaker 2: the middle of your brain. These nuggets have a reputation

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Speaker 2: as the center for anger and fear in your brain.

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Speaker 2: People who are missing their amygdala, if, for example, they

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Speaker 2: suffer from a disease called herbach wiathy, which calcifies the amygdala,

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Speaker 2: can still function, but they seem to lose the ability

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Speaker 2: to feel fear. Tests show they have a hard time

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Speaker 2: telling whether something is dangerous or not, and they are

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Speaker 2: more willing to approach unfamiliar situations. The amygdala also seems

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Speaker 2: to be responsible for aggressive behavior in mice, taking out

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Speaker 2: the amygdala seems to make them less territorial. What's interesting

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Speaker 2: is that, in the case of the love experiments, activity

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Speaker 2: in the amygdala actually decreased when subjects looked at pictures

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Speaker 2: of loved ones. In other words, love suppresses your sense

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Speaker 2: of fear and aggression, thereby lowering your defenses. The final

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Speaker 2: area that neuroscientists took note of and the Love experiments

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Speaker 2: is one that gives us the biggest clue about the

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Speaker 2: mechanisms for falling and staying in love. It's an area

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Speaker 2: that helps explain why humans like to love, why we

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Speaker 2: seek it, and why we sometimes even seem to be

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Speaker 2: addicted to it. That area is the brain's rewards system.

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Speaker 1: Okay, here's where we get to. The main question is

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Speaker 1: love and addiction, and the answer is, well, I'd love

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Speaker 1: to tell you, but you're gonna have to keep listening.

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Speaker 1: But hey, one of the cool things about the audiobook

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Speaker 1: We're Out of Your Mind is that you get both

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Speaker 1: of the authors reading it to you. So this is

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Speaker 1: the part where I take over the narration of the

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Speaker 1: chapter Love has its Rewards. You shouldn't be surprising that

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Speaker 1: our brains reward system lights up when we think about

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Speaker 1: love or when we see are loved ones. Love is

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Speaker 1: supposed to feel good. This area rewards you for it.

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Speaker 1: It's a network of structures at the very center of

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Speaker 1: your brain that tell the rest of you when something

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Speaker 1: is good, and it motivates you to seek it out

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Speaker 1: and get more of it. That craving you have for fatty,

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Speaker 1: sugary foods like chocolate, and the ensuing pleasure you feel

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Speaker 1: when you finally indulge in them, that's the brain's reward

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Speaker 1: system at work. That feeling of joy when your favorite

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Speaker 1: sports team wins the championship, and the impulse you have

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Speaker 1: to buy next year's season tickets blame your reward system.

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Speaker 1: That sense of peace and calm that washes over you

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Speaker 1: when you're surrounded by your loved ones, and the sense

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Speaker 1: that there's something missing in your life if you haven't

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Speaker 1: seen them in a long time, well, that's also the

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Speaker 1: brain's reward system. What the brain scanning experiments found was

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Speaker 1: that this reward system is activated when we look at

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Speaker 1: pictures of our loved ones. Here's a little of how

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Speaker 1: it works. When you do or experience something else, your

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Speaker 1: brain is programmed to like a little cluster of neurons

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Speaker 1: called the ventral tegmental area or VTA, releases a special

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Speaker 1: chemical called dopinin This chemical travels to different parts of

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Speaker 1: the brain, essentially yelling out, hey, this is good and important,

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Speaker 1: which triggers several actions. It inactivates the amydala, your brain

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Speaker 1: center for fear and anger, making you more open to

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Speaker 1: pleasure and enjoyment. It turns on the hippocampus, your brain's

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Speaker 1: memory center, to record everything about this moment so you

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Speaker 1: can remember later what led to this enjoyment. It triggers

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Speaker 1: the nucleus occumbents, your brain's motivation center, making you want

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Speaker 1: more of this stimulus. And finally, it triggers the prefrontal cortex,

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Speaker 1: which is where your higher thinking happens, so that you

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Speaker 1: are aware of what's going on. There are two interesting

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Speaker 1: things about this reward system. Number one, you can hack it.

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Speaker 1: Number two, it can be triggered to different degrees by

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Speaker 1: your range of things. Let's dig into each of these.

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Speaker 1: One it can be hacked. It turns out that it's

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Speaker 1: relatively easy to hijack your brain's reward system. For example,

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Speaker 1: in one famous experiment in the nineteen fifties, experimenters put

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Speaker 1: tiny wires into the brains of rats, placing them directly

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Speaker 1: on the VTA region. The wires were programmed to send

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Speaker 1: a little jolt of electricity whenever the rats pressed the

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Speaker 1: lever it was placed in their cage. This gave the

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Speaker 1: rats the ability to self activate their brains reward system.

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Speaker 1: As you might imagine, it didn't take long for the

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Speaker 1: rats to become obsessed with pressing the lever. They would

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Speaker 1: press it over and over to the point where they

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Speaker 1: would ignore basic necessities like food, water, and sex. Another

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Speaker 1: way to hag their brains reward system is with drugs. Cocaine,

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Speaker 1: for example, is a drug derived from the coca plant

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Speaker 1: that cleverly circumvents the VTA to sound the this is

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Speaker 1: good alarm in your brain. Normally, when dopamine gets released

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Speaker 1: by the it eventually gets reabsorbed back into neurons so

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Speaker 1: that its effects don't linger. But cocaine blocks at reabsorption,

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Speaker 1: keeping the dopamine around so that it continually activates all

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Speaker 1: those parts of your brain that tell you something good

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Speaker 1: is happening. Number two, it can be triggered by a

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Speaker 1: range of things to different degrees. The second interesting thing

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Speaker 1: about the brain's reward system is that lots of different

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Speaker 1: things seem to activate it. Somehow, evolution has managed to

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Speaker 1: wire your brain so that different behaviors, from eating high

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Speaker 1: calorie foods to getting a hug from your child, trigger

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Speaker 1: this reward system. And this makes sense. In order for

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Speaker 1: you to survive and for your genes to survive to

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Speaker 1: the next generation, there has to be a way for

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Speaker 1: your brain to tell your body when you're doing something

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Speaker 1: good that will ensure the survival. In the case of love,

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Speaker 1: our evolution has somehow determined that being close to a

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Speaker 1: lifelong made and caring for your children, parents, and community

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Speaker 1: are good for the cuntnuation of our species. This is

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Speaker 1: why love feels good. Your brain rewarding you for behavior

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Speaker 1: that benefits future generations of humans. Of course, not everything

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Speaker 1: that triggers the reward system does, though to the same degree.

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Speaker 1: Most people would agree that eating a piece of cake,

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Speaker 1: as delicious as it may be, isn't quite the same

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Speaker 1: as finding the love of your life. That's the other

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Speaker 1: interesting thing about the reward system. Your brain is wired

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Speaker 1: so that different things activated to different extents. Eating a

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Speaker 1: tasty cookie that gives your reward system a small nudge mm,

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Speaker 1: that's a tasty cookie. Your boyfriend holding back tears as

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Speaker 1: he says yes to your marriage proposal. That one lights

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Speaker 1: up your reward system like a fireworks display on the

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Speaker 1: fourth of July. You might have noticed that the same

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Speaker 1: brain circuit that's involved in feelings of love, the reward system,

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Speaker 1: is also the same brain circuit that's involved in drug addiction.

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Speaker 1: That's because both love and drugs supercharge the reward system,

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Speaker 1: and neuroscientists believe that when the war system is hyperactivated,

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Speaker 1: it triggers a feedback loop that starts to change your brain.

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Speaker 1: We'll card this in more detail in the chapter about addiction,

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Speaker 1: but the basic idea is that overwhelming amounts of dopamine

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Speaker 1: burn into your brain the desire to seek the source

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Speaker 1: of that enjoyment. This is why we crave love and

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Speaker 1: sometimes even obsessed about love. Love is like a drug.

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Speaker 1: Do you feel like you can't live without your loved ones?

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Speaker 1: As the pop singer Robert Palmer famously sang in the

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Speaker 1: nineteen eighties, let us bull face it. You're addicted to love. Yes,

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Speaker 1: it's true. I'm old enough to remember when that song

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Speaker 1: came out on the radio. So one way that scientists

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Speaker 1: look at love is as a sort of addiction. It

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Speaker 1: engages the same brain circuits, presumably to make sure that

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Speaker 1: our species survives. But now the big question is what

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Speaker 1: determines who we fall in love with? If love is

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Speaker 1: an addiction, what triggers it, Because it's probably not the case.

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Speaker 1: You're Madeleine love with everybody in the whole world. So

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Speaker 1: when we come back, we'll answer this question, and we'll

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Speaker 1: talk about whether you can take a drug that will

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Speaker 1: cure you of love or maybe make someone fall in

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Speaker 1: love with you. And then at the end, I'm going

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Speaker 1: to talk to doctor Godwin about how writing this chapter

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Speaker 1: affected our love life, I mean, our respective love lives.

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Speaker 1: We don't love working together that much. Stay with us.

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Speaker 1: We'll be right back, and we're back. We're talking about

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Speaker 1: whether love is an addiction, and the answer is yes,

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Speaker 1: sort of. The same brain circuit that makes you feel

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Speaker 1: good when you look at your partner, or your kids

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Speaker 1: or your besties is basically the same circuit that is

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Speaker 1: hijacked during addiction. Now, the question is how do we

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Speaker 1: pick who we fall in love with? Is this something

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Speaker 1: we can choose. Here's more of my reading from my

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Speaker 1: latest nonfiction book, Out of Your Mind, The Bonds of Love.

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Speaker 1: One question we haven't answered yet is why do we

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Speaker 1: love the people that we do. We know that love

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Speaker 1: is a feeling, that this feeling is triggered by your

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Speaker 1: brain's reward system, and we know that your brain is

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Speaker 1: wired to activate this reward system under certain conditions. But

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Speaker 1: what is it about certain people that makes this love them.

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Speaker 1: The answer to this question is still largely a mystery

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Speaker 1: to neuroscientists. One way to look at it is that

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Speaker 1: your reward system gets input from lots of places in

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Speaker 1: your brain. Everything from your senses, your memories, your base instincts,

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Speaker 1: and your higher thinking areas all feed into this reward system,

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Speaker 1: chiming in with an opinion about what they think is

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Speaker 1: good for you. And it could be that certain people

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Speaker 1: just check all the boxes. Throughout your life, your brain

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Speaker 1: has grown and been shaped by your genes and by

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Speaker 1: your life experiences. You've developed opinions and likes, and subconscious

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Speaker 1: preferences and emotional triggers. All of this has set you

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Speaker 1: up so that when you meet certain people, they cause

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Speaker 1: multiple areas in your brain to pin your reward system

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Speaker 1: at once, sending it the clear signal that somehow this

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Speaker 1: is someone that you want to be close to. Of course,

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Speaker 1: those of you with kids might be wondering, well, I

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Speaker 1: didn't exactly get to choose my kid, and yet I

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Speaker 1: still love them with all my heart. And for that

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Speaker 1: we have another chemical to thank, oxytocin. Oxytocin is a hormone,

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Speaker 1: which means it doesn't just float around your brain. It

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Speaker 1: also goes into your blood stream and travels to the

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Speaker 1: rest of your body. In particular, it seems to be

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Speaker 1: important in establishing the bond between a parent and child.

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00:26:45,240 --> 00:26:49,840
Speaker 1: Oxotocin is released after warm, positive interactions, especially those ending

432
00:26:50,040 --> 00:26:54,480
Speaker 1: in hugs. For women, oxytocin levels increase as much as

433
00:26:54,520 --> 00:26:58,600
Speaker 1: four times their normal levels. During labor, the active breastfeeding

434
00:26:58,680 --> 00:27:05,359
Speaker 1: also releases oxotocin. What does oxytocin do For one, it

435
00:27:05,400 --> 00:27:08,480
Speaker 1: lowers the level of stress hormones in your body. It

436
00:27:08,520 --> 00:27:11,679
Speaker 1: also turns down the amygdala, which, as we mentioned before,

437
00:27:12,080 --> 00:27:14,760
Speaker 1: is the area that makes you fearful of new situations

438
00:27:14,840 --> 00:27:19,000
Speaker 1: or other people. By suppressing your fear center, oxytocin essentially

439
00:27:19,080 --> 00:27:22,320
Speaker 1: lets your guard down and makes you more open to love.

440
00:27:22,840 --> 00:27:25,880
Speaker 1: Oxytocin also activates what it might be called the mommy

441
00:27:26,160 --> 00:27:29,359
Speaker 1: or daddy area of the brain. This area, called the

442
00:27:29,480 --> 00:27:33,439
Speaker 1: medial pre optic area or MPOA, is a part of

443
00:27:33,440 --> 00:27:37,480
Speaker 1: the brain that controls automatic functions like body temperature, hunger,

444
00:27:37,640 --> 00:27:41,119
Speaker 1: and sleep. We know it's important for parenting behaviors because

445
00:27:41,160 --> 00:27:44,440
Speaker 1: when it's turned off, either by drugs or by damage

446
00:27:44,440 --> 00:27:49,080
Speaker 1: to the brain, these behaviors are interrupted. In experiments, might

447
00:27:49,080 --> 00:27:52,680
Speaker 1: spit out the full use of the MPOA, stop nursing

448
00:27:52,680 --> 00:27:56,200
Speaker 1: their young, and in some cases, even abandon their babies.

449
00:27:57,200 --> 00:28:00,399
Speaker 1: Disturbances in this area in men or women they explain

450
00:28:00,480 --> 00:28:02,840
Speaker 1: why a small percentage of human parents have a hard

451
00:28:02,840 --> 00:28:05,840
Speaker 1: time bonding with their children, or why some don't seem

452
00:28:05,880 --> 00:28:09,199
Speaker 1: to bond at all. Lastly, oxotosin does what you might

453
00:28:09,240 --> 00:28:12,280
Speaker 1: expect to help parents bond with their children. It activates

454
00:28:12,359 --> 00:28:15,720
Speaker 1: the brain's reward system. It turns out that the regions

455
00:28:15,720 --> 00:28:17,800
Speaker 1: of the brains that are part of the reward system

456
00:28:18,040 --> 00:28:22,360
Speaker 1: are also sensitive to oxytocin, so when this hormone gets released,

457
00:28:22,440 --> 00:28:25,879
Speaker 1: it also causes the release of dopamine. And what about

458
00:28:25,880 --> 00:28:28,800
Speaker 1: people who don't report falling head over heels for their partner,

459
00:28:28,880 --> 00:28:31,800
Speaker 1: but grew to love them over time. It turns out

460
00:28:31,800 --> 00:28:35,119
Speaker 1: that oxytocin also plays a role in helping love blossom.

461
00:28:35,640 --> 00:28:38,000
Speaker 1: We know this from studying a cute little animal called

462
00:28:38,280 --> 00:28:41,120
Speaker 1: the prairie role. The prairie role is one of the

463
00:28:41,200 --> 00:28:44,400
Speaker 1: four percent of mammals dead. Like many humans, pair up

464
00:28:44,400 --> 00:28:47,360
Speaker 1: in couples for life to raise their young. Scientists have

465
00:28:47,360 --> 00:28:50,200
Speaker 1: done experiments where the brains of female prairie roles were

466
00:28:50,200 --> 00:28:54,040
Speaker 1: injected with oxytocin. Those that receive the injection were found

467
00:28:54,080 --> 00:28:56,600
Speaker 1: to huddle more with their partners and seem to form

468
00:28:56,720 --> 00:29:01,920
Speaker 1: stronger bonds. In other experiments, scientists blocked oxytocin and found

469
00:29:01,960 --> 00:29:05,920
Speaker 1: that it disrupted how often the wolves formed couples. In humans,

470
00:29:05,960 --> 00:29:08,720
Speaker 1: as in prairie voles, oxytocin is released by your brain

471
00:29:08,840 --> 00:29:12,080
Speaker 1: during sex. It's your body's way of encouraging you to

472
00:29:12,200 --> 00:29:15,800
Speaker 1: form a lasting bond with that person. More interestingly, it

473
00:29:15,840 --> 00:29:18,120
Speaker 1: points to the idea that who we fall in love

474
00:29:18,160 --> 00:29:22,320
Speaker 1: with can be manipulated. For example, increasing the amount of

475
00:29:22,320 --> 00:29:25,400
Speaker 1: oxytocin in your system might lower your guard and make

476
00:29:25,480 --> 00:29:27,520
Speaker 1: you more likely to fall in love with the person

477
00:29:27,560 --> 00:29:33,480
Speaker 1: you're with. Love potion anyone. Alternately, you might be able

478
00:29:33,520 --> 00:29:37,480
Speaker 1: to sour a relationship by somehow disrupting the oxytocin in

479
00:29:37,560 --> 00:29:41,840
Speaker 1: a couple's brains. In fact, recent evidence suggests a species

480
00:29:41,840 --> 00:29:44,880
Speaker 1: of animal very close to us may have taken advantage

481
00:29:44,880 --> 00:29:48,360
Speaker 1: of our oxytocin system to hack their way into our hearts.

482
00:29:48,720 --> 00:29:50,480
Speaker 1: Does your dog really love you?

483
00:29:51,240 --> 00:29:51,360
Speaker 2: Who?

484
00:29:51,760 --> 00:29:55,040
Speaker 1: Over fourteen thousand years ago, some of the first dogs

485
00:29:55,080 --> 00:29:58,920
Speaker 1: were domesticated. This probably happened when bold and less aggressive

486
00:29:58,920 --> 00:30:04,000
Speaker 1: wolves encountered human camps. These early dog like wolves may

487
00:30:04,040 --> 00:30:06,880
Speaker 1: have been more interested in easy snacks and human left

488
00:30:06,880 --> 00:30:11,160
Speaker 1: doors than informing emotional bonds with humans. Since then, the

489
00:30:11,200 --> 00:30:14,040
Speaker 1: traits of many modern dogs had been selected by breeding

490
00:30:14,160 --> 00:30:18,400
Speaker 1: to be perfect pets, docile, attentive, and affectionate. But do

491
00:30:18,520 --> 00:30:23,720
Speaker 1: they really love us? Researcher Takefumi ki Kosui noticed that

492
00:30:23,840 --> 00:30:26,520
Speaker 1: his poodle tear it up when she nurished her puppies

493
00:30:26,520 --> 00:30:30,120
Speaker 1: in a way that indicated a positive emotion. His team

494
00:30:30,200 --> 00:30:34,120
Speaker 1: wondered whether other positive events, like interacting or seeing their

495
00:30:34,160 --> 00:30:38,640
Speaker 1: owner might produce a similar result. In one set of experiments,

496
00:30:38,680 --> 00:30:42,320
Speaker 1: they separated dogs from their owners. After a few hours,

497
00:30:42,520 --> 00:30:45,360
Speaker 1: some of the dogs were reunited with their owners, while

498
00:30:45,400 --> 00:30:47,960
Speaker 1: others were brought to someone who was familiar to them

499
00:30:48,120 --> 00:30:50,760
Speaker 1: but who was not their owner. They found that the

500
00:30:50,800 --> 00:30:53,560
Speaker 1: dogs that reunited with their owners had more tears in

501
00:30:53,600 --> 00:30:56,720
Speaker 1: their eyes than the dogs that didn't reunite with their owners.

502
00:30:57,280 --> 00:31:00,040
Speaker 1: Were these tears of joy that the researchers found it

503
00:31:00,080 --> 00:31:03,680
Speaker 1: prooves that dogs really love us, Oh not so fast.

504
00:31:05,000 --> 00:31:08,000
Speaker 1: In another set of experiments, the team measured how long

505
00:31:08,120 --> 00:31:11,080
Speaker 1: dogs staring at their owners and how that affected the

506
00:31:11,160 --> 00:31:15,400
Speaker 1: owner's oxytocin levels. They found that dogs that gaze at

507
00:31:15,440 --> 00:31:19,080
Speaker 1: their owners longer produce the bigger rise in their owners

508
00:31:19,200 --> 00:31:23,240
Speaker 1: oxytocin levels, and they found that owners would higher oxytocin

509
00:31:23,360 --> 00:31:26,520
Speaker 1: levels were more likely to play with and pet their dogs.

510
00:31:27,000 --> 00:31:29,400
Speaker 1: It could be love, or it could be that dogs

511
00:31:29,480 --> 00:31:32,720
Speaker 1: learned to produce tears to take advantage of our weakness

512
00:31:32,880 --> 00:31:36,920
Speaker 1: for puppy eyes. But whether some dogs really do form

513
00:31:36,960 --> 00:31:38,959
Speaker 1: a bond with us or we're just bred to make

514
00:31:39,040 --> 00:31:42,240
Speaker 1: us feel that way begs the question do we really care?

515
00:31:43,880 --> 00:31:47,280
Speaker 1: We're still learning a lot about oxytocin. For example, one

516
00:31:47,320 --> 00:31:50,080
Speaker 1: recent study suggests that it may also be involved in

517
00:31:50,200 --> 00:31:54,440
Speaker 1: regulating how much we eat, how we process emotions, and

518
00:31:54,520 --> 00:31:58,480
Speaker 1: when our instinct to flea gets activated. Like all hormones,

519
00:31:58,600 --> 00:32:02,600
Speaker 1: oxytocin acts in a mess and imprecise way, affecting lots

520
00:32:02,600 --> 00:32:05,880
Speaker 1: of systems at the same time. Who doesn't love a

521
00:32:05,920 --> 00:32:10,000
Speaker 1: good ending to recap. While writers and poets have been

522
00:32:10,000 --> 00:32:13,120
Speaker 1: trying to understand love for hundreds or thousands of years,

523
00:32:13,520 --> 00:32:16,640
Speaker 1: psychologists and neuroscientists have made great progress in just the

524
00:32:16,720 --> 00:32:19,560
Speaker 1: last few decades. Studies about the scale of love have

525
00:32:19,720 --> 00:32:22,600
Speaker 1: taught us that love is universal and that to some

526
00:32:22,720 --> 00:32:27,160
Speaker 1: degree it can be measured. fMRI brain imaging experiments tell

527
00:32:27,240 --> 00:32:30,000
Speaker 1: us that there are many different brain areas involved in love,

528
00:32:30,560 --> 00:32:34,280
Speaker 1: but the overall picture that emerges is a relatively simple one.

529
00:32:34,520 --> 00:32:39,680
Speaker 1: Love feels good. Therefore, you want more of it. If

530
00:32:39,760 --> 00:32:42,800
Speaker 1: something feels good, especially if it's as powerful as the

531
00:32:42,840 --> 00:32:45,440
Speaker 1: feelings we have towards the people that are close to us,

532
00:32:45,760 --> 00:32:49,000
Speaker 1: your brain wants to repeat it. The reagions that form

533
00:32:49,040 --> 00:32:51,560
Speaker 1: your brain's reward system. Make sure that you are aware

534
00:32:51,600 --> 00:32:54,320
Speaker 1: of this, that you remember it, and it changes your

535
00:32:54,320 --> 00:32:57,160
Speaker 1: brain to want it in your life as much as possible.

536
00:32:57,760 --> 00:33:00,520
Speaker 1: Breaking it down like this may make love seem clinical

537
00:33:00,840 --> 00:33:03,800
Speaker 1: or just about pleasure, but the magic of love is

538
00:33:03,840 --> 00:33:08,200
Speaker 1: in the subtleties the mystery still remains, why do we

539
00:33:08,240 --> 00:33:12,640
Speaker 1: love certain people and not others. Nobody knows what's going

540
00:33:12,680 --> 00:33:15,120
Speaker 1: to make one person stand out among others for that

541
00:33:15,240 --> 00:33:19,360
Speaker 1: initial attraction, and love takes time and patience. It may

542
00:33:19,400 --> 00:33:22,320
Speaker 1: be helped along by brain chemicals and hormones, but it

543
00:33:22,320 --> 00:33:26,200
Speaker 1: requires care for bonds to form and endure, It needs

544
00:33:26,240 --> 00:33:30,520
Speaker 1: effort to grow, and that is something that neuroscience can't predict,

545
00:33:31,320 --> 00:33:35,560
Speaker 1: at least not yet. Maybe in the future, neuroscientists will

546
00:33:35,600 --> 00:33:38,360
Speaker 1: be able to scan your brain and predict who you

547
00:33:38,360 --> 00:33:40,720
Speaker 1: will fall in love with, or they may be able

548
00:33:40,760 --> 00:33:44,120
Speaker 1: to design drugs that can reinforce love in your relationships

549
00:33:44,680 --> 00:33:48,440
Speaker 1: or make you forget relationships that didn't work out. It's

550
00:33:48,440 --> 00:33:50,720
Speaker 1: been a love filled ride, and there's still a lot

551
00:33:50,800 --> 00:33:53,920
Speaker 1: we don't know about love in the brain. As Shakespeare

552
00:33:53,920 --> 00:33:57,120
Speaker 1: wrote in A Midsummer Night's Dream, the course of true

553
00:33:57,120 --> 00:34:00,560
Speaker 1: love never did run smooth. Maybe Shake Spear was a

554
00:34:00,640 --> 00:34:04,760
Speaker 1: neuroscientist after all. Well, it was lovely of you to

555
00:34:04,840 --> 00:34:07,040
Speaker 1: join us. Hey, if you're interested in checking out the

556
00:34:07,120 --> 00:34:09,360
Speaker 1: rest of the book, look for Out of your Mind

557
00:34:09,600 --> 00:34:13,719
Speaker 1: wherever books or audiobooks are sold. Thanks for joining us.

558
00:34:14,120 --> 00:34:18,839
Speaker 1: We'd love to see you again. Next week. You've been

559
00:34:18,840 --> 00:34:23,520
Speaker 1: listening to Science Stuff production of iHeartRadio, written and produced

560
00:34:23,520 --> 00:34:27,520
Speaker 1: by me or Hey Cham, edited by Rose Seguda, executive

561
00:34:27,520 --> 00:34:31,240
Speaker 1: producer Jerry Rowland, and audio engineer and mixer Jasey Peckram.

562
00:34:31,320 --> 00:34:33,520
Speaker 1: And you can follow me on social media. Just search

563
00:34:33,560 --> 00:34:36,640
Speaker 1: for PhD Comics and the name of your favorite platform.

564
00:34:36,880 --> 00:34:39,799
Speaker 1: Be sure to subscribe to Sign Stuff on the iHeartRadio app,

565
00:34:39,840 --> 00:34:43,080
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts, and please

566
00:34:43,280 --> 00:34:46,759
Speaker 1: tell your friends we'll be back next Wednesday with another episode.

567
00:34:49,600 --> 00:34:51,680
Speaker 1: All right, Well, I would love it if people checked

568
00:34:51,680 --> 00:34:53,120
Speaker 1: out the rest of the book, how about you.

569
00:34:53,200 --> 00:34:56,680
Speaker 2: Yeah, I hope people enjoy it. And I really feel

570
00:34:56,800 --> 00:35:00,160
Speaker 2: that it's important to tell the people that you love

571
00:35:00,200 --> 00:35:03,640
Speaker 2: about the thing that you love. And I feel like

572
00:35:03,800 --> 00:35:07,440
Speaker 2: in writing this book it provided me a way to

573
00:35:07,600 --> 00:35:12,000
Speaker 2: reach out to my family and to friends and bring

574
00:35:12,000 --> 00:35:15,040
Speaker 2: them into my world just a little bit amazing.

575
00:35:15,520 --> 00:35:17,560
Speaker 1: It's an expression of your love for what.

576
00:35:17,840 --> 00:35:20,239
Speaker 2: Of the brain. And I have a special love for

577
00:35:20,320 --> 00:35:23,520
Speaker 2: the brain because it is the essence of what we do.

578
00:35:23,600 --> 00:35:27,520
Speaker 2: It is the place where we go to understand everything.

579
00:35:28,160 --> 00:35:30,000
Speaker 1: Well, thank you for sharing your love of the brain

580
00:35:30,160 --> 00:35:30,759
Speaker 1: with us. Brain.

581
00:35:31,080 --> 00:35:34,680
Speaker 2: Yeah, and you have a love too. You love conveying

582
00:35:34,840 --> 00:35:38,279
Speaker 2: science in a way that is understandable to people, that

583
00:35:38,400 --> 00:35:41,080
Speaker 2: brings them to a better understanding of the world that

584
00:35:41,120 --> 00:35:44,439
Speaker 2: we live in, whether it's your books and physics or

585
00:35:44,560 --> 00:35:46,719
Speaker 2: the book that you did with me, and also just

586
00:35:46,840 --> 00:35:49,840
Speaker 2: the books that you've written that bring young people into

587
00:35:49,920 --> 00:35:53,360
Speaker 2: a better understanding and to find their love in science.

588
00:35:54,000 --> 00:35:56,280
Speaker 2: I think that's probably true of you as well.

589
00:35:56,680 --> 00:35:58,799
Speaker 1: Oh, thank you for saying that, Quene. I love that,

590
00:35:59,400 --> 00:36:05,960
Speaker 1: I love you and I love you man. Awesome. All right,

591
00:36:06,000 --> 00:36:07,480
Speaker 1: that's pretty good. I