Love ( aka Lust or Kama ) is a highly addictive drug :'messenger chemical dopamine'

[krsna]

 

5th December 2005

 

 

 

 

Bonding: Love works like an addictive drug

 

 

Pop stars have been claiming love is a drug for years. Now, scientific research has proven them right.

Researchers have found evidence that the brain chemistry responsible for addiction also plays a role in love.

 

Both involve the messenger chemical dopamine, which stimulates the brain's "reward centre". It is partly because of dopamine that we want to return to a source of pleasure, such as good food or sex.

 

 

Dopamine also acts to keep a drug addict hooked on cocaine or heroin. And, new research suggests, it helps one person to fall head over heels for another.

 

Researchers in the United States studied Prairie voles, which are well known for forging long-lasting monogamous bonds with their mating partners.

 

More than almost any other animal, Prairie voles show signs of falling in love. Pair bonds between male and females form after a single mating encounter.

 

The scientists, led by Brandon Aragona from Florida State University, blocked the activity of a receptor protein that is activated by dopamine in a particular region of the vole's brain.

 

This appeared to throw a spanner into the male vole's love machinery. Affected males lost their usual strong preference for their mate over other females.

 

After a pair bond forms, male voles not only prefer the company of their mate but also react to other available females with aggression, the researchers found.

 

This also involved dopamine, but via a different type of receptor. Dopamine acted both to promote pair formation and to prevent the creation of pair bonds with other females.