When do you know if you really like someone? What does love do to your brain chemicals, and is falling in love just nature's way to keep our species alive?
Listen today as Dr. Jesse Corry explores with us what happens in our brain, not our heart, when we think we've found that special someone.
Selected Podcast
Your Brain 101: The Chemistry of Love
Featured Speaker:
Learn more about Jesse Corry, MD
Jesse Corry, MD, neurologist, St. Paul Nasseff Neoroscience
Jesse Corry, MD interest is in the stroke continuum of care, from primary prevention to acute management and through secondary prevention. In his practice he will see patients in the hospital and clinic. His practice philosophy is based on providing the best possible care for the patient commensurate with their wishes and values.Learn more about Jesse Corry, MD
Transcription:
Melanie Cole (Host): When do you know if you really like someone? What does love do to your brain chemicals and is falling in love just nature's way to keep our species alive? My guest today is Dr. Jesse Corry. He's a neurologist with Allina Health's United Hospital in St. Paul. Welcome to the show, Dr. Corry. Are we talking about how falling in love affects the brain or is it the other way around? Does the brain affect whether we fall or stay in love?
Dr. Jesse Corry (Guest): This is a great example of both. It's an example of biology affecting culture and then culture reciprocating to biology. If you think about it, what's the body want us to do? It wants us to make little ones but also give those little ones the chance to have little ones of their own so you need to find some sort of process whereby the beings are going to reproduce but that reproduction, that offspring, is going to be able to survive itself.
Melanie: So, when we're talking about brains, what goes on in our brain when we find ourselves attracted to someone and, Dr. Corry, I would like you to also mention, because the teenage brain is the subject of so much study, it's incredible. But, teenagers, you know, can fall in and out of lust in a matter of minutes. So, what goes on with the brain when we are attracted to somebody.
Dr. Corry: Well, you know, it's interesting. There seems to be about three phases that the brain goes through. There's this lust phase, kind of the sex drive, and while that shares a lot of similarities with our more regular notions of romantic love and long-term attached love, they're sort of independent pathways. Then, you go into the more classic pathways of romantic love, and then how that evolves over time into attachment. You know, being with somebody for 30, 40 years. What I think is fascinating is when they look at societies around the world, they see it's almost ubiquitous--that almost every society has a positive view of romantic love. Actually, I think there was this one survey they looked at 166 different cultures and 147 of them had a positive view of romantic love and the rest of the them--nobody had a bad idea of it and 19, they asked the question wrong. So, it's pretty much the same thing and all of them across the board really shared similar stages. You know, this lust, then it's actually courtship, and then attachment. And so, what we're seeing is when we first have that first, like you're saying, the teenagers and that lust stage. That's actually driven by this kind of biologic need to be part of a group; to be sociable. We're social animals. So, what's going on is actually the first, most important thing to kind of initiate the process, is stress. It’s just basically not being with that special someone. So, you have these really high levels of cortisol in the body that makes us more nervous. It starts to really affect our motivations. We wind up kind of looking for people to be with us. We want to impress other people and the biological of this stage is really to, for lack of a better term, reproduce with as many people as possible. And then, during this stage of kind of indiscriminately going out there and trying to meet people and whatnot, that's what then triggers, once you find somebody meets kind of your pair bonding, your mate preference, that's when you start then transitioning into those other stages of the romantic love and attachment.
Melanie: So, it really is a chemical reaction involving cortisol, the stress hormone, and then our happy hormones--adrenaline, dopamine, serotonin; all of these things kind of swirling around to get us to the point where we feel that sense of love. Do you think that that is our body's way of keeping the human species alive?
Dr. Corry: You know, I think it is. I mean, you look at across the cultures, we have similar models. Something had to evolve in that way and it makes sense. When you look at these three stages: that early stage, the cortisol gets high, as you transition to the second stage, things start to become more rewarding so you start making dopamine; and then, that dopamine, as we start going from that second to that third stage, starts releasing other hormones. Oxytocin and vasopressin, these are what helps. The oxytocin is that kind of cuddling, that "feel good" hormone and the vasopressin is what kind of really reinforces that pair bond that says, "I want to be with this special someone," and long-term, that high stress stage, when you're trying to date someone, meet somebody, becomes a low-stress state. So, when you're in the attached phase, in that ideal phase, you still have the dopamine you had when you were first meeting that person when they were still new, but you don't have that social apprehension, you don't have that nervousness you had before.
Melanie: So, what about--and you mentioned people that have been together for 50 years--what changes? If we've had that attached phase with oxytocin and the vasopressin, what happens in the longer phase and what happens if we start to fall out of love?
Dr. Corry: Okay. So, what happens is, when you start in that attachment phase first, when you start to have kind of that "Oh, I like this person," and you've gone and you've showed them that "Oh, you're special to me and here's why," there's a part of the brain called the “ventral tegmental” area and this a part of the brain kind of lower in the brain, by the brain stem, and this is kind of what starts really pumping up that dopamine. And then, this goes to a part of the brain called the nucleus accumbens. And what this area starts to do, it starts to kind of really reinforce that motivation that says "Hey, I want to keep on doing these things that make me feel good." The parts of the brain that were kind of being triggered to make you a little more nervous, a little more fearful, the amygdala being one of those structures, it suppresses that a little bit, it calms it down. But then, there's another part of the brain called the ventral pallidum and what the nucleus accumbens starts to do, it starts to really reinforce this pathway and as we get older and as we have more experiences that release the oxytocin, the vasopressin, that pathway to the ventral pallidum really becomes amped up. And so, when you look at successfully married or pair bonded couples, you know, 10, 20, 30 years down the road, this seems to be kind of the new love center. If the ventral tegmental area is the love center when we're younger, this area becomes the love center when we're older. And so, and as a result of what's happened before, you're less stressed out. Now, you asked what happens when we fall out of love, here, and what I think is fascinating when we look at the brain of people who are in love versus people who have fallen out of love or who are single, there are actually structural brain changes in the part of the brain called the “striatum”, which it's kind of the risk manager. It looks at risk/reward benefits of different activity. When a person's in love, that part of the brain tends to become a little less dense, meaning that the nerves actually have more connection to other nerves and people are able to kind of put a different spin on things, they view the world differently. And then, when they fall out of love or they're single, that area shows less of these synaptic connections, here. So, these chemicals are actually changing the ways our nerves are connected. When you fall out of love, you lose that chemical feedback to make those connections so the brain will structurally start to change and a part of the brain that becomes really active is the part that questions conflict called the “dorsal anterior cingulate gyrus”. And this area then starts kind of questioning , "What did I do wrong?" "Why are we not together?" and so you now have a loss of chemicals, almost a withdrawal phase and part of the brain that questions conflict all really amped up, and so that's when you start having these, the "love hurts”--you know, that really painful part of [CROSS-TALK] . . .
Melanie: And it actually does. It actually does hurt.
Dr. Corry: Yeah, that's why it's happening.
Melanie: Tell us, does science have any advice because the listeners want to know how couples can return to the more blissful stage of love and get those brain chemicals involved? In just the last few minutes, give us your best advice, really, on how couples can return to that feeling.
Dr. Corry: I think the trick is, you know, when they look at successful couples, the trick is newness, newness, newness. So, if you've recently fallen out of love, right, you need to try something different. So, go on a trip. Go and pick up a new hobby. I think for men, in particular, being able to communicate some of what went wrong or what their feelings are is important and there's been some evidence with women that communicate, but don't bring up the past constantly. Now, if you're in a relationship and you want to maintain that, again, newness is important, because that newness is going to trigger that dopamine release and that's going to trigger all the other things. So, what they've found is couples that share things. I'll give you an example. Friends of mine, been married 15 years, his wife started taking up shooting. He shot for years as a hobby. She's taking it up right, so now it's something new that they're sharing and she's enjoying this, you know? So, taking up hobbies of the other person, or starting new hobbies together.
Melanie: Showing the interest in their interests.
Dr. Corry: Exactly. Exactly. And probably, one of the most important things is just sex. Sex releases that oxytocin, that helps form that pair bond. It releases that vasopressin that reinforces that you are monogamous to this person. So, newness, enjoying each other--these are all very important to having a successful, long-term relationship.
Melanie: Wow. What an interesting topic and we could really talk about this for a long time, Dr. Corry, but thank you so much for being with us today. You're listening to the WellCast . . .
Dr. Corry: Thanks, Melanie. It was great.
Melanie: It was lots of fun. The WellCast with Allina Health and for more information, you can go to www.allinahealth.org. That's www.allinahealth.org. This is Melanie Cole. Thanks so much for listening.
Melanie Cole (Host): When do you know if you really like someone? What does love do to your brain chemicals and is falling in love just nature's way to keep our species alive? My guest today is Dr. Jesse Corry. He's a neurologist with Allina Health's United Hospital in St. Paul. Welcome to the show, Dr. Corry. Are we talking about how falling in love affects the brain or is it the other way around? Does the brain affect whether we fall or stay in love?
Dr. Jesse Corry (Guest): This is a great example of both. It's an example of biology affecting culture and then culture reciprocating to biology. If you think about it, what's the body want us to do? It wants us to make little ones but also give those little ones the chance to have little ones of their own so you need to find some sort of process whereby the beings are going to reproduce but that reproduction, that offspring, is going to be able to survive itself.
Melanie: So, when we're talking about brains, what goes on in our brain when we find ourselves attracted to someone and, Dr. Corry, I would like you to also mention, because the teenage brain is the subject of so much study, it's incredible. But, teenagers, you know, can fall in and out of lust in a matter of minutes. So, what goes on with the brain when we are attracted to somebody.
Dr. Corry: Well, you know, it's interesting. There seems to be about three phases that the brain goes through. There's this lust phase, kind of the sex drive, and while that shares a lot of similarities with our more regular notions of romantic love and long-term attached love, they're sort of independent pathways. Then, you go into the more classic pathways of romantic love, and then how that evolves over time into attachment. You know, being with somebody for 30, 40 years. What I think is fascinating is when they look at societies around the world, they see it's almost ubiquitous--that almost every society has a positive view of romantic love. Actually, I think there was this one survey they looked at 166 different cultures and 147 of them had a positive view of romantic love and the rest of the them--nobody had a bad idea of it and 19, they asked the question wrong. So, it's pretty much the same thing and all of them across the board really shared similar stages. You know, this lust, then it's actually courtship, and then attachment. And so, what we're seeing is when we first have that first, like you're saying, the teenagers and that lust stage. That's actually driven by this kind of biologic need to be part of a group; to be sociable. We're social animals. So, what's going on is actually the first, most important thing to kind of initiate the process, is stress. It’s just basically not being with that special someone. So, you have these really high levels of cortisol in the body that makes us more nervous. It starts to really affect our motivations. We wind up kind of looking for people to be with us. We want to impress other people and the biological of this stage is really to, for lack of a better term, reproduce with as many people as possible. And then, during this stage of kind of indiscriminately going out there and trying to meet people and whatnot, that's what then triggers, once you find somebody meets kind of your pair bonding, your mate preference, that's when you start then transitioning into those other stages of the romantic love and attachment.
Melanie: So, it really is a chemical reaction involving cortisol, the stress hormone, and then our happy hormones--adrenaline, dopamine, serotonin; all of these things kind of swirling around to get us to the point where we feel that sense of love. Do you think that that is our body's way of keeping the human species alive?
Dr. Corry: You know, I think it is. I mean, you look at across the cultures, we have similar models. Something had to evolve in that way and it makes sense. When you look at these three stages: that early stage, the cortisol gets high, as you transition to the second stage, things start to become more rewarding so you start making dopamine; and then, that dopamine, as we start going from that second to that third stage, starts releasing other hormones. Oxytocin and vasopressin, these are what helps. The oxytocin is that kind of cuddling, that "feel good" hormone and the vasopressin is what kind of really reinforces that pair bond that says, "I want to be with this special someone," and long-term, that high stress stage, when you're trying to date someone, meet somebody, becomes a low-stress state. So, when you're in the attached phase, in that ideal phase, you still have the dopamine you had when you were first meeting that person when they were still new, but you don't have that social apprehension, you don't have that nervousness you had before.
Melanie: So, what about--and you mentioned people that have been together for 50 years--what changes? If we've had that attached phase with oxytocin and the vasopressin, what happens in the longer phase and what happens if we start to fall out of love?
Dr. Corry: Okay. So, what happens is, when you start in that attachment phase first, when you start to have kind of that "Oh, I like this person," and you've gone and you've showed them that "Oh, you're special to me and here's why," there's a part of the brain called the “ventral tegmental” area and this a part of the brain kind of lower in the brain, by the brain stem, and this is kind of what starts really pumping up that dopamine. And then, this goes to a part of the brain called the nucleus accumbens. And what this area starts to do, it starts to kind of really reinforce that motivation that says "Hey, I want to keep on doing these things that make me feel good." The parts of the brain that were kind of being triggered to make you a little more nervous, a little more fearful, the amygdala being one of those structures, it suppresses that a little bit, it calms it down. But then, there's another part of the brain called the ventral pallidum and what the nucleus accumbens starts to do, it starts to really reinforce this pathway and as we get older and as we have more experiences that release the oxytocin, the vasopressin, that pathway to the ventral pallidum really becomes amped up. And so, when you look at successfully married or pair bonded couples, you know, 10, 20, 30 years down the road, this seems to be kind of the new love center. If the ventral tegmental area is the love center when we're younger, this area becomes the love center when we're older. And so, and as a result of what's happened before, you're less stressed out. Now, you asked what happens when we fall out of love, here, and what I think is fascinating when we look at the brain of people who are in love versus people who have fallen out of love or who are single, there are actually structural brain changes in the part of the brain called the “striatum”, which it's kind of the risk manager. It looks at risk/reward benefits of different activity. When a person's in love, that part of the brain tends to become a little less dense, meaning that the nerves actually have more connection to other nerves and people are able to kind of put a different spin on things, they view the world differently. And then, when they fall out of love or they're single, that area shows less of these synaptic connections, here. So, these chemicals are actually changing the ways our nerves are connected. When you fall out of love, you lose that chemical feedback to make those connections so the brain will structurally start to change and a part of the brain that becomes really active is the part that questions conflict called the “dorsal anterior cingulate gyrus”. And this area then starts kind of questioning , "What did I do wrong?" "Why are we not together?" and so you now have a loss of chemicals, almost a withdrawal phase and part of the brain that questions conflict all really amped up, and so that's when you start having these, the "love hurts”--you know, that really painful part of [CROSS-TALK] . . .
Melanie: And it actually does. It actually does hurt.
Dr. Corry: Yeah, that's why it's happening.
Melanie: Tell us, does science have any advice because the listeners want to know how couples can return to the more blissful stage of love and get those brain chemicals involved? In just the last few minutes, give us your best advice, really, on how couples can return to that feeling.
Dr. Corry: I think the trick is, you know, when they look at successful couples, the trick is newness, newness, newness. So, if you've recently fallen out of love, right, you need to try something different. So, go on a trip. Go and pick up a new hobby. I think for men, in particular, being able to communicate some of what went wrong or what their feelings are is important and there's been some evidence with women that communicate, but don't bring up the past constantly. Now, if you're in a relationship and you want to maintain that, again, newness is important, because that newness is going to trigger that dopamine release and that's going to trigger all the other things. So, what they've found is couples that share things. I'll give you an example. Friends of mine, been married 15 years, his wife started taking up shooting. He shot for years as a hobby. She's taking it up right, so now it's something new that they're sharing and she's enjoying this, you know? So, taking up hobbies of the other person, or starting new hobbies together.
Melanie: Showing the interest in their interests.
Dr. Corry: Exactly. Exactly. And probably, one of the most important things is just sex. Sex releases that oxytocin, that helps form that pair bond. It releases that vasopressin that reinforces that you are monogamous to this person. So, newness, enjoying each other--these are all very important to having a successful, long-term relationship.
Melanie: Wow. What an interesting topic and we could really talk about this for a long time, Dr. Corry, but thank you so much for being with us today. You're listening to the WellCast . . .
Dr. Corry: Thanks, Melanie. It was great.
Melanie: It was lots of fun. The WellCast with Allina Health and for more information, you can go to www.allinahealth.org. That's www.allinahealth.org. This is Melanie Cole. Thanks so much for listening.