Those nerves or butterflies that you feel when you are in love have a reason and come from your brain. Find out why.
What do you experience when you are in love? When you see or think about your loved one, do you go through endless positive emotions? Do you feel invincible and with a plenitude that has no end? What is stated here, added to what you really think and feel, is related to a chain of chemical responses in the brain.
According to Natalia López-Moratalla, professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at the University of Navarra, “in falling in love, after the emotional impulse of the beginning, the brain circuits of trust are set in motion to consolidate the love bond, and The areas that create distances, those that are activated in depressive states or sadness, are specifically silenced. Dialogues and silences between neurons bind lovers in a double way: attracting them by activating the path of emotional reward, and overcoming personal distances by deactivating distrust.”
What substance does the brain produce when you fall in love?
Being in love increases the hormones that produce well-being. In women, an increase in the level of physical contact, gaze and emotional empathy is felt thanks to the high levels generated of oxytocin, a trust hormone, while in men a more rationalized empathy is produced, and a increased detection of erotic stimuli, due to vasopressin, the hormone that enhances testosterone.
“When we fall in love, there is an increase in the levels of dopamine, a neurotransmitter related to the feeling of gratification, pleasure, and the processes of emotion and motivation, regulating the feeling of expectation towards the reward. This would cause that when we fall in love we are prone to look for any excuse in order to see, hear or simply be with the person in question,” said Dr. Daniel Álvarez, coordinator of the Master’s Degree in Neuropsychology at CETYS Universidad Campus Mexicali. .
On the other hand, a study published in the journal ‘Frontiers of Human Neuroscience’ showed that at least ten areas of the same brain modify their activity when we fall in love, since this state is accompanied by euphoria, desire, obsession, compulsion, distortion of the reality, emotional dependence, personality changes and risk taking.
Contrary effects
According to Álvarez, at this stage you can experience insomnia, loss of appetite and tachycardia due to the increase in the number of love neurotransmitters and norepinephrine in the brain. As well as low levels of concentration, due to serotonin, which could be related to the obsessive thoughts that most people generate towards their loved one during this stage.
For López-Moratalla, the female brain, when faced with a dangerous situation in the relationship, shows the panic and insecurity of being emotionally displaced, because due to the same levels of oxytocin there is a certain tolerance for sexual betrayal, while in the male brain Areas related to aggressive and sexual behaviors are activated, which leads to a breakdown of trust and the desire for physical confrontation, even more so if the sexual infidelity of your partner arouses.