Credits: Social Media
There’s a love stronger than romance that ‘lights up the brain’ in different ways
A new study has discovered regions in the brain that light up when you experience different forms of love and romance isn’t the strongest form of love governing mankind.
The feel-good factor in the early stages of a romantic relationship is caused by dopamine – a neurotransmitter responsible for activating the pleasure and reward circuit. Even though falling in love feels out of the world, there is an emotion stronger than that.
Study reveals love for children impacts the brain more
Love isn’t an emotion limited to romantic partners, and a new study shows that it’s definitely not the strongest one.
Researchers at Aalto University led a study to understand the impact of different forms of love on the brain, as they studied the regions that “light up” when the emotion is at its peak.
55 participants self-described as being in a “loving relationship” were presented with different scenarios related to six different types of love. One of them includes:
“You see your newborn child for the first time. The baby is soft, healthy, and hearty – your life’s greatest wonder. You feel love for the little one.”
They studied the brain activity for each brief story using fMRI (functional magnetic resonance imaging) and found that the activation of the brain’s reward system in the striatum area while imagining love was deepest in parental love.
The next strongest form of love to influence brain activity was romance. The study published by Oxford Academic states that the “neural activity during a feeling of love depends on its object.”
So, the love you experience for something is not just influenced by the closeness factor but also depends on what it is, such as a child, romantic partner, pet, nature, etc.
Pet parents experience a similar feeling
The study found that a simple scenario could activate the brain area associated with sociality to reveal whether the participants lived with a pet or not.
They were told to imagine love for 10 seconds while being presented with the following brief story in addition to two more:
“You are in a park playing with your dog. You toss a stick for the dog and it retrieves it enthusiastically wagging its tail. You love your dog. “
The brain activity was more in pet parents in the above situation compared to others without pets. “Our result suggests that for pet owners, love for pets is neurally more similar to interpersonal love than for participants without pets,” notes the study.
