Is Love all about chemicals?

Is Love Just a Chemical Cocktail?

The link is an interesting story about how love is made by a chemical cocktail called oxytocin. If the exact chemical combination can be figured out, then you will have love. Is love merely an epiphenomenon of chemical interactions? (That's a ten dollar word that means "by-product"). If so, the study's main author Dr. Young argues that chemical pills can be developed to help people fall in love.

What the article doesn't mention is some preliminary tests have already been done. First, researchers have found out that oxytocin actually arises about six months after a couple has started seeing each other. In other words, chemical bonding on a deep, emotional level occurs after the first meeting. It peaks about eighteen months later. The most notable side effect is that passionate romance gives way to a more warm, generalized feeling of being with someone.

In order to test this premise, scientists did a study where they studied monkey brains. When monkeys groom each other, it is more about social hierarchy and maintaining order than about getting rid of pests. One species in particular, a long-haired gibbon I want to say, (I'm off-hand referencing this study), braids the hair for five hours if two of the females are seperated and then reunited. During this period, oxytocin levels reach a high peak, with the females grabbing each other excitedly and acting like humans do when reunited.

Scientists grabbed two females, seperated them for a few days, shot them with oxytocin, and then reunited them. The result? The monkeys did absolutely nothing. Having already received the chemical fix, they no longer responded to each other. In other words, the pill might just make people less attracted to each other, not more attracted. The brain works to receive its drug, if it gets it, it loses interest in acquiring more of it. That's why drugs cause people to lose sleep, not drink water, or eat. The pleasurable feeling supercedes any normal pleasurable feelings they may have had.

If you're interested in the book I am off-referencing, it is Liars, Lovers, and Heroes, and it contains many more fascinating studies.