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Your Brain 101: The Chemistry of Love Part Two
In part one of The Chemistry of Love Dr. Corry explained what happens in our brain when we fall in love. In this segment, we explore falling out of love, how to stay in love, and a look at love as addiction.
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Learn more about Jesse Corry, MD
Jesse Corry, MD, neurologist, St. Paul Nasseff Neoroscience
Jesse Corry, MD interest is in the stroke continuum of care, from primary prevention to acute management and through secondary prevention. In his practice he will see patients in the hospital and clinic. His practice philosophy is based on providing the best possible care for the patient commensurate with their wishes and values.Learn more about Jesse Corry, MD
Transcription:
Your Brain 101: The Chemistry of Love Part Two
Melanie Cole (Host): Joining me today is Dr. Jesse Corry. He’s a Neurologist with Allina Health’s United Hospital in St. Paul. In Part One of the Chemistry of Love, he explained what happens in our brain when we fall in love. Today, we’re going to explore falling out of love, how to stay in love, and how to look at love as possibly an addiction. Welcome to the show, Dr. Corry. So, does the brain change when we fall out of love?
Dr. Jesse Corry (Guest): In a word, yes. Just to quickly review, when our brain falls into love, there’s this dispersal of stress of -- humans we want to be social beings. You have this stress, you have this anxiety, and when you fall in love, the brain starts really – those functional pathways that reward good experience, those get built up, and that anxiety, that nervousness, those get tampered down. We actually see on MRI studies both these functional pathways have these electrical impulses -- getting rewarded for good prosocial behavior and being social beings and that anxiety pathway being suppressed -- but we also see structural changes in the brain where parts of the brain called the striatum -- which is part of the reward center -- actually get – they have physical changes. When we fall out of love then, this all reverts back to what it was before we fell in love, so you have this sudden withdrawal of those good hormones -- that dopamine, that oxytocin, that we were having before -- and you start to see actual physical brain changes where the rewards structures of the brain actually start reverting back to that state before we were in love.
Melanie: This is such an absolutely fascinating topic. Does science have any advice on how couples can return to that more blissful state of love, or do you think, Dr. Corry, that it’s a deeper thing than just how your brain is reacting, and sometimes this is what couples have to work on in therapy, or that there are other reasons – libido, or just attractiveness of the other partner – what do you say about that?
Dr. Corry: This is a fascinating topic. When we look at the structures of the brain, we see that the biology early on – rewards, newness, and that newness pushes that dopamine that then feeds forward into the system -- but that dopamine is important for the development of attachment later on. But attachment then gets reinforced by newness. When we look now – that’s the biology – we look now at the psychology and why do you see these marriages fall apart. There’s one really common theme. There’s not sharing anymore. This new pair bond, this attached group, they don’t share new experiences, so they’re not having those rewarding events right now. They’re not reinforcing that part of the brain that’s been changed now that they’re attached. The one secret to rekindling that flame -- to keeping an old love new again -- is newness, is the share experience, things like, take the mundane and make it great. When you have dinner – okay you’re ordering pizza -- put some candles on there, have a nice wine with it, or have a code word that when you and your loved one hear this common word – bread, coffee – you make sure that you go ahead and you give a kiss, or a hug, or a gentle pat to your lover. These are the things that are important for day-to-day life, but it’s also important to make sure that you’re sharing your thoughts, your concerns. As we all get older, we’re all going to have new interests and new hobbies. Share those new interests and hobbies with your loved one.
Melanie: So, sometimes relationships don’t always work out and we’ve heard that expression, “Love hurts.” Is that just an expression, or does it really hurt?
Dr. Corry: Oh no, it’s actually -- this is fascinating. This is where we start looking more at the similarities between the early stages of love and addiction. When a person gets that puppy love or they’re heartsick, or they’ve been rejected, there’s a part of the brain called the dorsal anterior cingulate gyrus and this helps with conflict monitoring and balancing things – risk-benefit ratios, and those sort of things. It’s also connected to a part of the brain called the insular cortex, and this part of the brain helps us with pain and distress, so now what you have is the brain that’s really activated in parts of the brain that are for risk-benefit as well as for physical pain. So, when we fall out of love, or we’ve been rejected, often times we’re more in tune to physical uncomfort [sic], physical distress and therefore, love does hurt.
Melanie: Wow, so it really, truly does and many of these experiences – that rollercoaster of emotions, physical pain, they sound like substance withdrawals, and you mentioned the word addiction. Can love be an addiction? I know in some addiction centers when they’re going through treatment, they say, “Don’t pick a partner right now.”
Dr. Corry: Yeah.
Melanie: Is that related?
Dr. Corry: Very much so. The pathways we have for social cognition, for rewards, they’re redundant, so different things will use these same pathways so when we look at how humans evolved, there are things we need to do. We need to eat. We need to drink. We need to procreate. And then we have systems that evolved secondarily to increase the likelihood of success for those actions. So, in the case of procreation, we have romantic love to make sure our offspring have the best chance for success. Now, drug addiction piggy-backs a lot on that first pathway, that desire for procreation, desires for love. When we look now at what a normal type of rewards system is that somebody evolved with -- for food or water, what have you -- there’s that stage where you start to develop an appetite for whatever you’re trying to be rewarded for and then you have the actual – you attain your food, your drink, your mate and then afterwards there’s a period of pleasant satiation where basically you’re contented, you’re full. In the case of addiction, though, you have, oftentimes – what we were talking about before with that dorsal anterior cingulate gyrus and the insular cortex, the parts that help with risk, reward, and pain -- those are a little more amplified in active – in folks who are on substances of abuse, like cocaine and heroin. When they obtain that cocaine or heroin, that normal flood of transmitters that you or I would have after making love to our loved one, or after a great meal, the transmitters released during drug use -- with cocaine, or heroin, etcetera -- are many, many folds greater than what’s normally experienced. That period of being content, that satiation afterwards, is much, much shorter. There’s a thought going on that if we can better understand normal rewards through love or food or whatnot, we can then understand when that goes awry in addiction. Since things like normal love will transition into that more normal romantic attachment, are there ways we can learn how to transition addiction to something different that makes it much easier to deal with and much less painful for the individual affected by addiction?
Melanie: Dr. Corry, do you see a difference in the brain of somebody who is in love versus someone who loves – if you love your child, if you love your parents, if you love your best friend -- versus that feeling of being in love, or lust, is there a difference there?
Dr. Corry: Yeah, the feelings we see with – like maternal love, many of the same pathways are used, but the parts of the brain that are activated are maybe the same structures, but slightly different parts of the structure. We also see that things like romantic love are more similar to things like the love a mother for a child, the platonic love between two friends, in that the parts of the brain that are activated -- typically the ventral pallidum and whatnot -- are more active than the parts of the brain we see light up during early love, that lust stage.
Melanie: Wow, and what about when you are rejected? By any situation, rejection can happen in any kind of love relationship, so what do people do to recover and what is happening when they feel that sense of rejection?
Dr. Corry: So what’s happening when we have that unrequited love? Again, the thing to get back on the horse is that newness, newness, newness. Often times we look first at the rejection. The person – definitely they feel bad. They’re stressed out. They still have low levels of serotonin, which are very common in the early stages of love, so they need to find a way to amp up the dopamine again, to have a pleasurable experience again, and to basically treat that impulse to become a more social being. One of the things that are always recommended if you’ve been rejected – healthy behaviors would be to try something new. Go on a trip, pick up a new hobby, do something new that’s going to stimulate that dopamine system to really flood our transmitters so that dopamine, that good hormone that makes us feel good about ourselves. The hope is then that that will then help quiet that discomfort, that anxiety we have that triggers the whole social process, to begin with.
Melanie: So, wrap it up for us. With our brain chemistry, when we’re in love, and when we love, what do you want people to know about why this science matters to them, what you want them to take from this segment and use in their daily life?
Dr. Corry: Great question. I think the thing to, first of all, keep in mind is it’s normal to feel – what I used to call twitterpated, from Bambi -- you feel nervous. That’s normal – that first part where you’re trying to find somebody special – that’s normal, that’s part of biology. When you’ve been rejected -- that’s okay it’s going to happen -- keep trying something new. Newness is going to be the key. It’s going to be your friend to make that anxiety you feel – something that’s palatable. When you find somebody who you love, and you develop that paired relationship, make sure you really do things to reinforce that relationship. Try something new, talk with your loved one, communicate, these are the important things. When you start noticing that spark dwindle, make sure you talk about that with your loved one. Make sure you’re able to share and do new things because newness is going to help you find that person. Newness is going to help you maintain that love and care bond. If you do have somebody who you know and you care for who, unfortunately, may be in the throes of addiction, understand that this is largely the biology -- It’s largely what’s normal biology just gone awry. So, some of the things that – hopefully, that scientists learn more about the love process, they can then take these data and find treatments to better treat our loved ones who, unfortunately, have problems with addiction.
Melanie: Thank you, so much, for being with us. It is really, such an interesting topic, Dr. Corry.
Dr. Corry: Oh, I know.
Melanie: Thanks again, it really is. Thanks, so much. You’re listening to the WELLcast with Allina Health, and for more information, you can go to AllinaHealth.org, that’s AllinaHealth.org. This is Melanie Cole, thanks, so much for listening.
Your Brain 101: The Chemistry of Love Part Two
Melanie Cole (Host): Joining me today is Dr. Jesse Corry. He’s a Neurologist with Allina Health’s United Hospital in St. Paul. In Part One of the Chemistry of Love, he explained what happens in our brain when we fall in love. Today, we’re going to explore falling out of love, how to stay in love, and how to look at love as possibly an addiction. Welcome to the show, Dr. Corry. So, does the brain change when we fall out of love?
Dr. Jesse Corry (Guest): In a word, yes. Just to quickly review, when our brain falls into love, there’s this dispersal of stress of -- humans we want to be social beings. You have this stress, you have this anxiety, and when you fall in love, the brain starts really – those functional pathways that reward good experience, those get built up, and that anxiety, that nervousness, those get tampered down. We actually see on MRI studies both these functional pathways have these electrical impulses -- getting rewarded for good prosocial behavior and being social beings and that anxiety pathway being suppressed -- but we also see structural changes in the brain where parts of the brain called the striatum -- which is part of the reward center -- actually get – they have physical changes. When we fall out of love then, this all reverts back to what it was before we fell in love, so you have this sudden withdrawal of those good hormones -- that dopamine, that oxytocin, that we were having before -- and you start to see actual physical brain changes where the rewards structures of the brain actually start reverting back to that state before we were in love.
Melanie: This is such an absolutely fascinating topic. Does science have any advice on how couples can return to that more blissful state of love, or do you think, Dr. Corry, that it’s a deeper thing than just how your brain is reacting, and sometimes this is what couples have to work on in therapy, or that there are other reasons – libido, or just attractiveness of the other partner – what do you say about that?
Dr. Corry: This is a fascinating topic. When we look at the structures of the brain, we see that the biology early on – rewards, newness, and that newness pushes that dopamine that then feeds forward into the system -- but that dopamine is important for the development of attachment later on. But attachment then gets reinforced by newness. When we look now – that’s the biology – we look now at the psychology and why do you see these marriages fall apart. There’s one really common theme. There’s not sharing anymore. This new pair bond, this attached group, they don’t share new experiences, so they’re not having those rewarding events right now. They’re not reinforcing that part of the brain that’s been changed now that they’re attached. The one secret to rekindling that flame -- to keeping an old love new again -- is newness, is the share experience, things like, take the mundane and make it great. When you have dinner – okay you’re ordering pizza -- put some candles on there, have a nice wine with it, or have a code word that when you and your loved one hear this common word – bread, coffee – you make sure that you go ahead and you give a kiss, or a hug, or a gentle pat to your lover. These are the things that are important for day-to-day life, but it’s also important to make sure that you’re sharing your thoughts, your concerns. As we all get older, we’re all going to have new interests and new hobbies. Share those new interests and hobbies with your loved one.
Melanie: So, sometimes relationships don’t always work out and we’ve heard that expression, “Love hurts.” Is that just an expression, or does it really hurt?
Dr. Corry: Oh no, it’s actually -- this is fascinating. This is where we start looking more at the similarities between the early stages of love and addiction. When a person gets that puppy love or they’re heartsick, or they’ve been rejected, there’s a part of the brain called the dorsal anterior cingulate gyrus and this helps with conflict monitoring and balancing things – risk-benefit ratios, and those sort of things. It’s also connected to a part of the brain called the insular cortex, and this part of the brain helps us with pain and distress, so now what you have is the brain that’s really activated in parts of the brain that are for risk-benefit as well as for physical pain. So, when we fall out of love, or we’ve been rejected, often times we’re more in tune to physical uncomfort [sic], physical distress and therefore, love does hurt.
Melanie: Wow, so it really, truly does and many of these experiences – that rollercoaster of emotions, physical pain, they sound like substance withdrawals, and you mentioned the word addiction. Can love be an addiction? I know in some addiction centers when they’re going through treatment, they say, “Don’t pick a partner right now.”
Dr. Corry: Yeah.
Melanie: Is that related?
Dr. Corry: Very much so. The pathways we have for social cognition, for rewards, they’re redundant, so different things will use these same pathways so when we look at how humans evolved, there are things we need to do. We need to eat. We need to drink. We need to procreate. And then we have systems that evolved secondarily to increase the likelihood of success for those actions. So, in the case of procreation, we have romantic love to make sure our offspring have the best chance for success. Now, drug addiction piggy-backs a lot on that first pathway, that desire for procreation, desires for love. When we look now at what a normal type of rewards system is that somebody evolved with -- for food or water, what have you -- there’s that stage where you start to develop an appetite for whatever you’re trying to be rewarded for and then you have the actual – you attain your food, your drink, your mate and then afterwards there’s a period of pleasant satiation where basically you’re contented, you’re full. In the case of addiction, though, you have, oftentimes – what we were talking about before with that dorsal anterior cingulate gyrus and the insular cortex, the parts that help with risk, reward, and pain -- those are a little more amplified in active – in folks who are on substances of abuse, like cocaine and heroin. When they obtain that cocaine or heroin, that normal flood of transmitters that you or I would have after making love to our loved one, or after a great meal, the transmitters released during drug use -- with cocaine, or heroin, etcetera -- are many, many folds greater than what’s normally experienced. That period of being content, that satiation afterwards, is much, much shorter. There’s a thought going on that if we can better understand normal rewards through love or food or whatnot, we can then understand when that goes awry in addiction. Since things like normal love will transition into that more normal romantic attachment, are there ways we can learn how to transition addiction to something different that makes it much easier to deal with and much less painful for the individual affected by addiction?
Melanie: Dr. Corry, do you see a difference in the brain of somebody who is in love versus someone who loves – if you love your child, if you love your parents, if you love your best friend -- versus that feeling of being in love, or lust, is there a difference there?
Dr. Corry: Yeah, the feelings we see with – like maternal love, many of the same pathways are used, but the parts of the brain that are activated are maybe the same structures, but slightly different parts of the structure. We also see that things like romantic love are more similar to things like the love a mother for a child, the platonic love between two friends, in that the parts of the brain that are activated -- typically the ventral pallidum and whatnot -- are more active than the parts of the brain we see light up during early love, that lust stage.
Melanie: Wow, and what about when you are rejected? By any situation, rejection can happen in any kind of love relationship, so what do people do to recover and what is happening when they feel that sense of rejection?
Dr. Corry: So what’s happening when we have that unrequited love? Again, the thing to get back on the horse is that newness, newness, newness. Often times we look first at the rejection. The person – definitely they feel bad. They’re stressed out. They still have low levels of serotonin, which are very common in the early stages of love, so they need to find a way to amp up the dopamine again, to have a pleasurable experience again, and to basically treat that impulse to become a more social being. One of the things that are always recommended if you’ve been rejected – healthy behaviors would be to try something new. Go on a trip, pick up a new hobby, do something new that’s going to stimulate that dopamine system to really flood our transmitters so that dopamine, that good hormone that makes us feel good about ourselves. The hope is then that that will then help quiet that discomfort, that anxiety we have that triggers the whole social process, to begin with.
Melanie: So, wrap it up for us. With our brain chemistry, when we’re in love, and when we love, what do you want people to know about why this science matters to them, what you want them to take from this segment and use in their daily life?
Dr. Corry: Great question. I think the thing to, first of all, keep in mind is it’s normal to feel – what I used to call twitterpated, from Bambi -- you feel nervous. That’s normal – that first part where you’re trying to find somebody special – that’s normal, that’s part of biology. When you’ve been rejected -- that’s okay it’s going to happen -- keep trying something new. Newness is going to be the key. It’s going to be your friend to make that anxiety you feel – something that’s palatable. When you find somebody who you love, and you develop that paired relationship, make sure you really do things to reinforce that relationship. Try something new, talk with your loved one, communicate, these are the important things. When you start noticing that spark dwindle, make sure you talk about that with your loved one. Make sure you’re able to share and do new things because newness is going to help you find that person. Newness is going to help you maintain that love and care bond. If you do have somebody who you know and you care for who, unfortunately, may be in the throes of addiction, understand that this is largely the biology -- It’s largely what’s normal biology just gone awry. So, some of the things that – hopefully, that scientists learn more about the love process, they can then take these data and find treatments to better treat our loved ones who, unfortunately, have problems with addiction.
Melanie: Thank you, so much, for being with us. It is really, such an interesting topic, Dr. Corry.
Dr. Corry: Oh, I know.
Melanie: Thanks again, it really is. Thanks, so much. You’re listening to the WELLcast with Allina Health, and for more information, you can go to AllinaHealth.org, that’s AllinaHealth.org. This is Melanie Cole, thanks, so much for listening.