The Science Of Love And Lust

Ever struggled to determine whether you were in love or simply caught up in the enticing whirlwind of short-lived lust?

While it may be difficult for you to tell the difference between love and lust, your brain, according to Dr. Rick Hanson, experiences the two emotions very differently.

When people are in love, Hanson writes for BigThink.com, two areas of the brain are activated: the caudate nucleus and the tegmentum. The tegmentum sends dopamine, a neurotransmitter that helps control the brain's reward and pleasure centers, to the caudate nucleus, one of the brain's aforementioned reward centers. When the reward centers are activated, whether it be by falling in love, winning the lottery, or snorting cocaine, the brain begins craves whatever triggered the pleasurable feeling. In the case of love, the source of that feeling is the person you have fallen for.

We are motivated to pursue love, then, by our brain's desire to experience pleasure, and we are also motivated to pursue love to avoid pain. A person who has been rejected in love experiences activation in the insula, the region of the brain that is responsible for responding to physical pain.

When people are in lust, rather than deeply in love, entirely different systems of the brain are activated. One of these, the hypothalamus, is primarily concerned with the regulation of basic drives like hunger and thirst. The other, the amygdala, is responsible for emotional reactivity. Together, the hypothalamus and the amygdala are involved in "the arousal of the organism and readiness for action," like the fight-or-flight response that determines our reaction to stress and fear. These brain systems are also involved in "energizing activities that feel emotionally positive like cheering on your favorite team - or fantasizing about your sweetheart."

The differences between the neurological experiences of love and lust may help explain the differences in their subjective emotional experience. Being in love may feel softer (more, as Hanson puts it, "Aaaaahh, how sweet!") than the fires of lust (the feeling of which Hanson colorfully explains as "Rawwrh, gotta have it!") because lust triggers a reaction in regions of the brain that are devoted to high-intensity responses and love does not.

It is not just lust, however, that drives us to want to have sex with our partners. Dopamine, the neurotransmitter that is increased when feelings of love are experienced, triggers testosterone production, which is "a major factor in the sex drive of both men and women."

What's the best way, then, to determine if you're really in love or only in lust? Hire a neuropsychologist!