Why Men Want Sex and Women Need Love Read Online Free PDF

the OCD and in-love participants had about 40% less of the chemical. The way the scientists estimate this is by the amount of activity of a serotonin transporter protein in their blood platelets. This experiment can explain how early romantic love can often turn into obsession.
    Retesting the same subjects twelve to twenty-four months later, Marazziti found that the hormonal differences of lust had disappeared entirely, and their serotonin levels were back to normal, even if the couples were still together. Lovers will swear to each other that they will always “feel” this way, but their hormones clearly tell a different story. Mother Nature is very clever: She adjusts our hormone levels for just long enough to drive us to achieve her evolutionary goal—to produce offspring.
    Using the same method for volunteer selection, in 2005 Enzo Emanuele and his colleagues at the University of Pavia, Italy, investigated whether the chemical messengers, the neurotrophins, are involved in romantic love. They reported that the concentration of nerve-growth factor in the blood exceedsnormal levels in infatuated volunteers and that it increases with the intensity of romantic feelings. Like Marazziti, Emanuele and colleagues also found that after one to two years, all of the love chemicals had gone, even if the couples were still together. Neither the initial intensity of the love feelings nor the concentration of nerve-growth factor appeared to be an indicator of whether a relationship would last.
    Interestingly, a study released in 2008 by a team from Stony Brook University in New York, headed by Dr. Arthur Aron, scanned the brains of couples who had been together for 20 years and compared them with those of new romantic lovers. They found that about 10% of the mature couples demonstrated the same brain activation and chemical reactions when shown photographs of their loved ones as the “new” lovers did. So there is hope for some of us.
    For 90% of people, factors other than early hormone rushes are needed to sustain a relationship in the long term .
     
     
    Meanwhile, at Whitchurch Hospital in Cardiff, Wales, biochemist Abdulla Badawy has shown that alcohol also depletes serotonin in the brain. Low levels of serotonin dissolve inhibitions and create an illusion that the ordinary-looking person at the other end of the bar is unbelievably attractive.
    All this research shouts a clear message to those looking for long-term love: Wait for up to two years before making a long-term emotional or financial commitment to someone—and choose your bars carefully.
    But if all the chemical messengers of intense romantic feelings disappear within two years, what is the chemical glue that keeps some couples together for the long term? All is not lost—we’ll discuss this in later chapters.

What Happens When You Get Dumped
     
    One reason new love is so heart-stopping is the possibility and fear that the feeling may not be entirely reciprocal and that the dream could suddenly end.
    In another experiment, Drs. Fisher, Brown, and Aron carried out brain scans on forty young men and women who were recently dumped by their lovers. As in the “newly-in-love” study in 2007 by Brown and Fisher, the researchers compared two sets of images: one taken when the participants were looking at a photo of a friend, the other when looking at a picture of their ex. The results showed that when you look at a photo of someone who has just abandoned you, the brain areas associated with physical pain, obsessive-compulsive behavior, risk taking, and controlling anger all switch on. They also found that when you get dumped, these brain areas usually light up even more and you become even more attracted to your rejecting partner. As a coping mechanism—similar to the “fight-or-flight” response—your brain gears up for at least one more attempt to recapture your lover’s attention to avoid the pain of being hurt. When, however, you finally accept that you have