Relationships require several key components. As with many relationships attraction begins the spark of what later is confused as love. Let us take an alternate view as to what creates attraction. Is that heart stopping smile an unexplained stop to all other smiles you see or is just a cascade of physiological events occurring in your brain and heart.
For biology's sake we have an innate drive to seek out prime partners and mate. We are built to pass our genes on. This is the point of life in the animal world. To better ensure that our genes are passed on the best possible way we seek out the perfect partner. For example I prefer a male with dark hair, dark eyes, tall, lean, humorous, sane and fit. I get signals from these characteristics that this fellow would be a good mate. It has been suggested by Helen Fisher that " when pursuing a specific mate your sensory, cognitive and memory neural systems are activated. The main system activated is the courtship attraction system."(1) The behaviors that occur with the courtship activation system have been highly associated with "raised levels of dopamine and norepinephrine in the brain".(1)Oddly enough the two hormones are related. Each are biogenic amines derived from the precursor products tyrosine or tryptophan. The hormones act within the central and peripheral nervous system. Dopamine's core functions consist of "reward, pleasure, regulating emotional responses, movement and goal seeking behaviors"(2). Norepinephrine has control over the stress response system. We have all experienced this while giving a speech or standing in front of that special some one. Your heart races, palms sweat, and all function is focused on your respiratory system which means digestion ceases. It is not hard to see why these two specific hormones increase when the courtship system is activating. The dopamine drives your desire for the traits the beloved possesses while the norepinephrine increases based on the amount of precursor being made your body must maintain homeostasis. The pitter patter of your heart flaring up when he/she walks by is your bodies reaction to the norepinephrine.
To further support this idea of a courtship attraction system an experiment was executed. Using fMRI Helen Fisher studied a group of individuals "in love". Her experiment consisted of showing the individual a thirty second view of their significant other's photo and then exposing them to a distraction task for forty seconds. They were then rewarded again by a viewing of the significant other's photo and told to think of a nonsexual experience of the other. After another distraction task was executed for twenty seconds. (1)
From the experiment conducted it was concluded that upon exposure to the photo the reward pathways of the brain were activated. To further prove that the reward system another experiment as conducted. Couples who had been in love for a longer period of time and had lost the shine of puppy dog love were subjected to the experiment. They as well as the previous group were observed through an fMRI machine. In this experiment the individual studied three photographs at the same time. One was of the significant other and the others were of friends with similar traits and the same sex. The conclusion was the same. The dopamine reward system was yet again activated.(1)
All in all love may be a cruel trick of of the brain. Possibly love is created by your brain to drive you to thrive and continue on. Not only pass your genes on but possibly to shape and mold a better human being. I know from experience love tends to make you into a completely different person may be better or it may not. What ever we have love for though whether it be just a way for your mind to encourage you to mate or to become something better.
Resources
1.http://www.helenfisher.com/downloads/articles/Article_final_JRS_06.pdf, Helen Fisher Arthur Aron and Lucy L. Brown, November 13, 2006 Philisophical transactions of the Royal Society, Romantic Love: A mammalian brain system for mate choice, pgs 2173-2176 accessed : 12/13/2011
2.http://www.psychologytoday.com/basics/dopamine sussex publishers, psychology today, psych basics: dopamine accessed:12/13/2011
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