One of the deadly sins and only: scientists explain the nature of lust

Remember how you felt the last time you fell in love – your palms are sweaty, your eyes are shining, your heart is jumping out of your chest. For a long time, people thought the heart was behind everything, but as it turns out, the brain behind the feeling of love was the brain, Varsity writes.

To understand this, scientists have proposed categorizing romantic love: lust, attraction, and commitment. They believe that different chemicals control these categories in your brain. Testosterone, estrogen, dopamine, and norepinephrine control lust and attraction, while oxytocin, vasopressin, dopamine, and serotonin control feelings of love.

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But what is lust? It’s not just one of the seven deadly sins, is it? Lust is thought to arise from sexual gratification and is often explained by the evolutionary need for reproduction.

Naturally, rewarding and enjoyable activities are vital to human experience and survival. Activities such as sex depend on the brain’s reward circuits. The main chemical behind this circuit is dopamine, the “pleasure” neurotransmitter, and some activity of the body’s natural endorphin, also known as morphine, that “raises” these pleasant feelings to our brains.

These chemicals trigger lust and make you come back to the person. Dopamine released from the hypothalamus, your brain’s hormonal center, creates feelings of euphoria and a “feel-good” state. The entire reward system, including the hypothalamus, is also activated when a person takes opioids!

Now let’s talk about physical love. How does it look? People in love often describe love as a feeling of security, safety, lightness and spaciousness. For example, constantly wanting to hug and cuddle. It feels familiar, natural and warm, but still exciting.

And all thanks to a chemical called oxytocin. Oxytocin is often referred to as the hug hormone and love chemical. This encourages behaviors such as trust and social cooperation. It is a chemical that activates the bond between mother and child and even causes orgasm. Even shaking hands or hugging a person can cause the release of oxytocin in our brain.

It is a powerful hormone, and researchers have discovered that it is actually an empowering hormone, meaning that the strong emotions we experience at a given moment are reinforced. When it comes to feelings of love, it builds trust, a sense of security, and connection. Both oxytocin and vasopressin, the hormone that controls blood pressure, “deactivate” areas of the brain associated with negative emotions, social judgments, and evaluating other people’s intentions and emotions. Maybe that’s why people say “love blinds”.

Interestingly, the reward system also plays a role in love. Some of the brain regions involved in love are the medial insula, anterior cingulate gyrus, hippocampus, and subcortex, parts of the striatum and possibly the nucleus accumbens, which together form the reward system. This system provides the same sense of euphoria by using the dopamine signal that keeps you connected to your partner.

Human attachment also uses a push-pull mechanism that bridges this social distance by deactivating networks used for critical social appraisal and evaluation of their intentions and negative emotions, while connecting you and your partner through a reward system.

All this shows that the power of love is obvious. It takes over our social interactions and cognitive circuits and even influences many of the decisions we make on a daily basis. It is the greatest motivator and stimulant of the human experience—scientists argue that it is perhaps more powerful than lust. However, these emotions, experiences, or whatever you want to call them, are complex neurosciences and have their ups and downs. But they may be one of the most important factors for humanity’s continued existence to this day.

The more we learn about the mechanisms and neuroscience of love and lust, the clearer we become why so many human interactions are based on these emotions and why understanding them can be key to understanding human behavior.

Previously Focus He wrote that in some mammals, relationships are formed without oxytocin. Genetic deprivation of oxytocin in prairie mice did not prevent them from mating and forming families, changing everything we know about the role of oxytocin in love and family formation.