Love is More Powerful then Sex

Sex and romance may seem inextricably linked, but the human brain clearly distinguishes between the two, according to a new study. The upshot: Love is the more powerful emotion.

The results of brain scans speak to longstanding questions of whether the pursuit of love and sex are different emotional endeavors or whether romance is just warmed over sexual arousal.

"Our findings show that the brain areas activated when someone looks at a photo of their beloved only partially overlap with the brain regions associated with sexual arousal," said Arthur Aron of the State University of New York-Stony Brook. "Sex and romantic love involve quite different brain systems."

Romantic love is one of the most powerful of all human experiences," said study member Helen Fisher, an anthropologist at Rutgers University. "It is definitely more powerful than the sex drive."

Fisher said the study might suggest some of the physiology of stalking behavior. Other studies suggest that up to 40 percent of people who are rejected in love slip into clinical depression, she said.

"Rejected men and women in societies around the world sometimes kill themselves or someone else," Fisher said.

Animals, too

There are hints in the study that romance is not a uniquely human trait.

Some of the changes seen with mature romances were in regions of the brain also associated with pair-bonding in prairie voles. Other studies have found that expressions of attraction in a female prairie vole are linked to a 50 percent hike in dopamine activity in the brain region that corresponds to the location where human romance is processed.

"These and other data indicate that all mammals may feel attraction to specific partners, and that some of the same brain systems are involved," Fisher said.

So there you have it right from the very very tiny hearts and minds of "scientists."

Ever notice how they reduce the most incredibly beautiful and complex workings of our creator to nothing more then meaningless interations between chemicles, and other bullshit? Why do I always end up feeling depressed when I read science books? I cant shake the feeling that there is something fundamentally wrong with science. Science may have SOME basis in fact, but I think the majority of it destroys what the world is actually about. Enough babbling about "scientists" I gotta go to bed, maybe I will rant about them later, in a blog specifically about them, and their brain errors.