Hormone of love

Source: shutterstock I get so breathless, when you call my name I've often wondered, do you feel the same There's a chemistry, energy, a synchronicity When we're all alone —Corinne Bailey Rae Falling in love can hit you hard—in mind and body. You feel irresistibly attracted to your crush. If things continue, you may feel a rush of euphoria, a longing to be together, passion, and excitement. You feel like you've found the most special, unique person in the world. Fast forward a few years, and the excitement has likely gone down (except for a few lucky couples). But though the novelty may wear off, if all goes well, it has been replaced by a warm, comforting, nurturing type of feeling. You feel bonded in body, mind, and spirit. You share your hopes and dreams and work hard together to make them come true. 1. Lust When you’re in the stage of lust, you feel physically attracted and drawn to to the object of your affection. You want to seduce them (or be seduced). There may be an element of mystery or an intensity that makes things exciting—imagine a hot one night stand. Lust is driven primarily by the hormones • Dopamine: Increased dopamine is associated with • Norepinephrine: Norepinephrine is responsible for the extra surge of energy and "racing heart" that you feel, as well as the loss of, in some cases, both your • Serotonin: Scientists think serotonin probably decreases at this stage, but more studies need to be done. Low levels of serotonin are found in THE BASICS • • • ...

Oxytocin is a neurohormone with many functions. It’s responsible for initiating childbirth, and research has shown that Oxytocin plays a key role in maternal behavior and bonding between mother and child in non-human mammals. Oxytocin is called “the Hormone of Love” because it’s also released during sex in humans. It’s theorized that oxytocin may help us form social bonds, and it may also make social interactions more rewarding and enjoyable. Studies show that people who maintained Oxytocin levels during negative emotions were less likely to report interpersonal problems. Through these results, it can be theorized that Oxytocin can help improve sex, sociability, and mood. Common Uses for Oxytocin • Mood (depression and anxiety) • Addiction/recovery (alcohol and opioids) • Female Sexual Dysfunction or FSD (intimacy, arousal, orgasm) • Men who have issues with intimacy • General sexual dysfunction (men/women) Note: The FDA has not yet approved oxytocin for treating these disorders. Oxytocin for hypoactive sexual desire disorder (HSDD) Oxytocin has traditionally been used to facilitate child labor, prevent post-delivery hemorrhaging, and help initiate or increase lactation. However, there’s a growing interest in using Oxytocin for Hypoactive Sexual Desire Disorder (HSDD) and Female Sexual Dysfunction (FSD). Oxytocin is naturally released from the brain in men and women to help regulate anxiety, stress-coping, and various social behaviors. As a result, Oxytocin has been used o...

They have also been happily married for nearly four decades. Love may well be one of the most studied, but least understood, behaviors. More than 20 years ago, the biological anthropologist Helen Fisher studied 166 societies and found evidence of romantic love—the kind that leaves one breathless and euphoric—in 147 of them. This ubiquity, said Schwartz, an HMS associate professor of psychiatry at McLean Hospital in Belmont, Mass., indicates that “there’s good reason to suspect that romantic love is kept alive by something basic to our biological nature.” Rewarding ourselves with love In 2005, Fisher led a research team that published a groundbreaking study that included the first functional MRI (fMRI) images of the brains of individuals in the throes of romantic love. Her team analyzed 2,500 brain scans of college students who viewed pictures of someone special to them and compared the scans to ones taken when the students looked at pictures of acquaintances. Photos of people they romantically loved caused the participants’ brains to become active in regions rich with dopamine, the so-called feel-good neurotransmitter. Two of the brain regions that showed activity in the fMRI scans were the caudate nucleus, a region associated with reward detection and expectation and the integration of sensory experiences into social behavior, and the ventral tegmental area, which is associated with pleasure, focused attention, and the motivation to pursue and acquire rewards. The ventral...

Oxytocin might be the chemical you need to charge your connections super. Here is what you need to know about oxytocin… What is Oxytocin? Oxytocin is a hormone made by the hypothalamus, the part of the brain that controls biological functions like heart rate, body temperature, and digestion. It plays a vital role in social interactions. Oxytocin manages essential aspects of human behavior and the male and female reproductive systems, such as labor, childbirth, and lactation. Starting with the hypothalamus in the brain, the posterior pituitary gland stores and releases the hormone into the bloodstream. • trust • parent-infant bonding • romantic attachment • sexual arousal • recognition Those who have been given oxytocin experience… • increase • decreased • enhanced human What are the effects of oxytocin? What do low levels of oxytocin look like? How can you increase oxytocin levels? Oxytocin and the Social Brain The hormone oxytocin regulates learning from The brain pathways through which oxytocin regulates social functioning include: • Sensory systems: We learn socially by olfactory cues, meaning that the information we gain from our noses when we pick up smells can explain the relationship between oxytocin and brain region activity, such as the olfactory bulb. While researchers have found this in rodents, there is evidence that humans also have the exact • Limbic circuits: The brain’s chemical oxytocin reduces fear response by decreasing activity in the amygdala, which is...

Oxytocin flows through the blood of all mammals, and its role in the psychology of love is rooted in a much more fundamental form of love. Oxytocin chemically facilitates the basic physiological processes that define us as mammals: During pregnancy, oxytocin levels rise, and they peak during labor. Oxytocin buffers against the body’s Knowing that oxytocin is implicated in love and care, this makes sense. No doubt evolution has wired parents to ramp up the love hormone to facilitate bonding with infants. Yet these psychological explanations put the cart before the horse. What Makes Us Mammal It’s not that mammals evolved first, with their whole toolkit of pregnancy, lactation, and social bonding, and only later evolved a love hormone to help make the whole process go more smoothly. Oxytocin-like peptides are in fact hundreds of millions of years older than mammals themselves, and oxytocin is deeply intertwined with our mammalian evolutionary history. Oxytocin is not only involved in the psychology of pregnancy and breastfeeding but is critical to the basic physiological processes themselves. Oxytocin levels do not only rise during the birthing process to promote mother-infant bonding and reduce stress; they are also necessary for contractions during delivery themselves. For this reason, oxytocin is sometimes administered to induce or expedite labor. Similarly, oxytocin does not only promote loving bonding during breastfeeding, but it is necessary for the basic muscle contra...

Share on Pinterest There’s no denying that love can do a number on you, whether you’re head over heels, stuck on someone, or completely swept away. You don’t need to do much more than pick up a book or turn on the radio or TV to hear about love’s effects. Even the oldest written love song discovered to date has something to add: “You have captivated me, let me stand tremblingly before you,” reads the translation of “The Love Song for Shu-Sin,” which dates to approximately 2000 B.C. More modern media examples, including romantic comedies and sentimental tales of soul mates, can sometimes be a little hard to swallow, especially if Cupid’s arrows don’t strike you quite that hard. But if you’ve been in love yourself, you’ll know the occasional exaggerations don’t entirely miss the mark. Many people describe love as something you just have to learn to recognize when it happens. If you need a little help in that department, here are 15 telltale effects to look for. When you think of love, your heart might be the first organ that comes to mind. While terms like “thinking with your heart,” “you’re in my heart,” and “heartbroken” make this pretty understandable, you really have your brain to thank — that’s where it all goes down. The brain changes triggered by love certainly affect your mood and behavior when these feelings are new, but some effects linger long past the first blush of love, continuing to strengthen your commitment over time. Here’s a look at some of the major effec...

Grebe is a postdoctoral researcher in Duke's Eulemur primate genus. Red-bellied lemurs and mongoose lemurs ( Eulemur rubriventer and E. mongoz) are notorious for their monogamous behavior. Male-female partners from this branch of the lemur family tree tend to stick together as monogamous couples for years; once bonded, red-bellied or mongoose lemur pairs spend about a third of their lifespan with the same mate. However, as the diagram in Figure One (below) illustrates, other lemur species belonging to the Eulemur genus change partners frequently and are known for their " The mating system classification of seven Eulemur species at the Duke Lemur Center and their phylogenetic relationships, adapted from 39,51. The number and sex of specimens from each focal species is denoted in parentheses. The source figure 51 is published under a creative commons attribution license. After conducting a side-by-side comparison, the researchers were surprised to find that there weren't consistent differences between the distribution of oxytocin and vasopressin receptors in the neural circuitry of monogamous and non-monogamous lemurs. "We find little evidence of a ' Eulemur akin to those proposed in previous rodent or primate research," the authors write in the paper's abstract. "Mapping neuropeptide receptors in these nontraditional species questions existing assumptions and informs proposed evolutionary explanations about the biological bases of monogamy." Previous research suggests that ...