Scientists discover how various types of love illuminates distinct brain regions
The researchers employed sophisticated functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and observed participants’ brain activity.
Exploring all aspects of love, a group of researchers has made significant progress in establishing that different kinds of love stimulate distinct brain regions. Scientists from Aalto University in Finland revealed the details on Monday, and their study indicates that the human brain treats love in different forms differently: being in love or in a passion, caring for one’s children, or loving nature.
The researchers employed sophisticated functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and observed participants’ brain activity as they thought about six kinds of love as depicted by short stories. This work extends prior research in understanding why people use the word ‘love’ to describe a multitude of feelings.
The philosopher and lead author of the study, Parttyli Rinne, pointed out that love activates specific areas of the human brain, such as the basal ganglia, the midline of the forehead, the precuneus, and the temporoparietal junction at the sides of the head’s back part. Such patterns originate in social situations and give more insight into how love develops in the brain.
She stated, “In parental love, there was activation deep in the brain’s reward system in the striatum area while imagining love, and this was not seen for any other kind of love.”
This research, published in the Cerebral Cortex journal at Oxford University Press, investigated different types of love that people have for their partners, friends, strangers, animals, and nature. The findings were quite clear and showed that brain activity depends on the emotional connection with the object of love as well as the classification of the object into the human, animal, or nature.
The study stated, “Unsurprisingly, compassionate love for strangers was less rewarding and caused less brain activation than love in close relationships. Meanwhile, love of nature activated the reward system and visual areas of the brain, but not the social brain areas.”
Yet one of the interesting things for the researchers was to find out that the brain regions involved in different types of love are incredibly similar among individuals. By and large, the key differences were identified more in the degree/high amplitude of these activations. The study pointed out that all forms of interpersonal love activated the commonly understood social cognition networks relevant to the self and other people, apart from one love object. The researchers did not find this pattern of activity with the ‘love’ directed toward pets or nature.
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