Encore Episode: Your Brain on Dopamine

Why do people seem to fall in and out of love so easily?

It comes down to one chemical: dopamine.

Dopamine plays many roles in the brain: addiction, disease, and disorders. From a survival point-of-view, the brain has developed to help humans attain things for survival. Desire, planning and motivation help us get what we don’t have. Dopamine drives us to seek love or become addicted for short-term pleasure.

What’s Love Got to Do With It?

Dopamine fuels the “honeymoon phase” of love. Passionate love lasts 12 to 18 months. Oxytocin takes over and develops companionate love, turning the relationship into something more. The transition from passionate to companionate love can be difficult, and many mistake it as falling out of love.

Affairs can stem from dopamine stimulation. Dopamine promises a certain feeling when the hookup is attained, but reality doesn’t deliver on dopamine’s promises.

Listen as Dr. Daniel Lieberman joins Dr. Susanne Bennett to discuss how dopamine aids survival yet can hinder one’s love life.