Why we should be demanding oxytocin tests from our prospective life-partners before tying the knot
Alexander Nestor Haddaway’s 1993 hit-song plaintively asked What Is Love? but, unfortunately, didn’t provide any answers. Still, I hope Haddaway doesn’t feel too bad about it because better brains than his have been defeated by this age-old question ever since Homo became sapiens, and none of them ever had a No1 hit record or made a small fortune in royalties out of it.
Historically the heart has been the site of love, followed closely by the soul and – at least according to The Troggs and, later, Wet Wet Wet – the fingers and the toes, but science has scotched that one for once and for all and it is now official: the site of love is in two areas of the brain called the ventral tegmental area and the caudate nucleus. With names like that, I can’t see lyricists and poets ever giving up on the heart and soul, at least not without a huge struggle. Imagine Elton John and Kiki Dee trying to make ‘Don’t go breakin’ my ventral tegmental area…’ sound sexy, or Sinatra crooning sadly because ‘I left my caudate nucleus in San Francisco, high on a hill, it calls to me.’ And anyway, love isn’t a ‘feeling’ at all, nor a state, no matter how wondrous or how many-splendoured it may be felt to be: research shows hat it is what happens when a brain chemical called dopamine becomes activated, triggered by a person with specific looks, smells, character, feels, sounds, proportions and possibly memories that are specific to each individual.
We all react differently to different parameters which is why so many people say: ‘I just can’t imagine what she sees in him.’ Obviously a case of contrasting dopamine triggers. A fascinating research project involved 49 young women smelling sweaty T-shirts that had been worn by young men and saying which smelled the best and which the worst. The result showed that each woman was attracted to T-shirts of men whose DNA makeup (genotype) was most different to her own – nature making as sure as possible, perhaps, that any deficiencies in the woman’s genotype would be compensated for by searching as far away as possible from it for a breeding partner? Another brain chemical, serotonin, has been blamed by Italian researchers who found that serotonin levels were down by 40 per cent in people who are passionately in love. They found that the same thing was true of OCD (Obsessive Compulsive Disorder) sufferers. You can draw your own conclusions, but phrases about being ‘madly in love’ or being ‘mad about’ someone begin to take on a ring of truth.
This dopamine/serotonin mixture seems to provide the basis for ‘mad’ passionate love only, and is reckoned to wane after about four years. In purely biological terms, this is about the length of time invested in courtship, mating, producing an offspring and getting it to the stage where it can be handed over to a non-breeding member of the tribe or clan for continued rearing, thus completing a DNA-offspring cycle. With their duty now done and their common offspring safely out of the helpless stage, the parents are free of it, and can look around to mate again, not necessarily with the same partner.
Even long-term monogamous relationships have a chemical basis, a hormone called oxytocin. This is produced by both sexes, though it is usually associated with females, being vital for uterine contractions during delivery and for milk let-down during nursing. Mammals that exhibit monogamy are found to have high levels of oxytocin, but when these levels are artificially reduced over long periods, promiscuity increases. Maybe we should all demand oxytocin tests from our prospective life-partners before tying the knot.
All in the brain
The chemicals that control love, in either its sprint or marathon manifestations, are very powerful indeed and the old saying that Love Conquers All is supported by endless evidence. And the All that love conquers includes common sense. Ask Romeo and Juliet what happens when a Montague falls for one of the loathed Capulets and vice versa. Ask members of different castes in India what happens when love blossoms across rigid caste-barriers. Or ask young people in certain religious groups who have the temerity to try to choose their own partner. And yet, despite millennia of instilled tradition, and foreknowledge of the awful penalties that await them, they can’t help falling in love. Once the dopamine / serotonin take hold, commonsense goes out the window. And, unfortunately, being loaded to the gills with oxytocin isn’t always a protection against the two passionate brain chemicals.
So now you know it – love potions do exist. They exist within you, within everyone. Naturally.
