This Is Your Brain on Sex Read Online Free PDF Page B

similar emotional experiences. Otherwise we would not be able to recognize or connect with so many artistic expressions of love. He makes a compellingpoint.
    There is no question that the right visual image can elicit an emotional response. I’m only slightly embarrassed to admit that I am a reliable sucker for cute baby photos, AT&T commercials, and romantic comedy film trailers. And I am not the only one. The right picture, smell, or song can evoke commanding memories, along with any emotion behind them. Banking on that kind of power, Bartels and Zeki scanned seventeen folks who declared themselves to be passionately in love, eleven women and six men, while viewing facial photos of their significant other as well as photos of three other friends who shared the same sex as their beloved. The researchers instructed the study participants to simply look at each photo, think of the person in the photo, and relax. When they compared brain activation while viewing a lover and viewing a friend, they found two areas of the brain that reacted strongly: the left middle insula, an area implicated in emotion, self-awareness, and interpersonal relationships; and the anterior cingulate cortex, linked to reward anticipation, decision making, and emotion. And when they slightly lowered the threshold of activation, they also saw elevated blood flow in the hippocampus, the caudate nucleus, and the putamen, all areas involved with learning and memory, as well as the cerebellum, involved with the fine-tuning of motor control. It was a unique pattern, they argued, that could not be accounted for by anything but passionate love (though, Zeki quipped later, the brain activation pattern did look an awful lot like what you see in a brain after a hit of cocaine). What it meant, exactly, required further study. 5
    A Separate System for Romantic Love
    Fisher, Brown, and Aron used a similar photo viewing task in their fMRI study. Instead of asking participants just to think of their beloved, however, they also asked participants to think about specific events relating to the person, such as a romantic dinner or a recent trip to the beach—any situation in which they were together, excluding those of a naughty nature. Despite this slight change in focus, their results showed quite a bit of overlap with the Bartels and Zeki study. Fisher took these findings and suggesteda coherent theory of love: three distinct yet intersecting brain systems that correspond to sex, romantic love, and long-term attachment (like a mother-child bond or the comfortable relationship you might see in a couple who have been married for sixty years). These three separate systems, she argued, could cover all facets of love: romantic, parental, filial, platonic, and that old bugger, lust.

Areas activated in the original neuroimaging study of love by Semir Zeki and Andreas Bartels. This study also found a significant decrease in prefrontal cortex activation. Illustrations by Dorling Kindersley.

Helen Fisher and her colleagues hypothesize that there are three distinct systems involved in love: the hypothalamus for lust, the caudate nucleus and ventral tegmental area for romantic love, and the ventral pallidum for attachment. Illustration by Dorling Kindersley.
    Scientists have long known that theseat of the sex drive is the hypothalamus. When it is removed, folks lose all interest in sex, as well as the ability to perform sexually. This almond-size brain area is linked to the pituitary gland, which produces the hormones necessary to fuel the desire to “get it on.” Humans are more than just their sex drives, however. With romantic love, Fisher and her colleagues observed brain activity in areas outside the hypothalamus, including the right ventral tegmental area (VTA) and the right caudate nucleus. These are both part of the basal ganglia, a brain area connected to both the cerebral cortex and the brain stem. The basal ganglia, along with the hypothalamus and amygdala, is