Posted by:
Amyjo
(
)
Date: February 24, 2018 02:08PM
It's getting to be that time again, for all you love junkies out there. Spring is in the Air!
"Spring is a season of cliches -- birds singing, bees buzzing and people falling madly in love. If you're a scientist though, the love sickness can be blamed on one very real thing.
"It's dopamine," says Helen Fischer, a neuroscientist, professor at Rutgers University and author of five books on the science of love.
Fisher says dopamine is a naturally occurring chemical your brain uses to make you want things. There are other systems involved in love, but when it comes to new love, dopamine is the main culprit. And with enough of it swirling around your system, you're prone to fall in love -- and fall hard.
What does this have to do with spring? Dopamine is triggered by novel experiences.
"And there's so much novelty in the spring," said Fischer. "There is so much more color, new smells, people take their clothes off and you can see more of them. And so there is a lot of new stimuli that trigger the brain and drive up dopamine, and make you more susceptible to love."
Every April your brain unwittingly becomes a dopamine factory, turning you into a love junkie. In fact, brain scans of people flooded with the stuff look a lot like brain scans of drug addicts. Which makes sense, since being high on dopamine feels, as many lovers would put it, euphoric."
And love, like spring, springs eternal. ;-)
https://www.mprnews.org/story/2010/04/09/love-in-spring