The Science of Romance: A Valentine​

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     February is deemed—by our culture of consumerism—the month of romance (as if each month demands its own formal diversion to occupy our minds and wallets). The expression—and celebration—of romantic love has its origins in “courtly love” from the High Middle Ages, when troubadours sang of the knight’s chivalrous duty to protect the virtues of his lady, and later to proclaim his love:

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For weal or woe I will not flee
To love that heart that loveth me.

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     Romantic love has changed little since then, even though its expression—and the means to express it—have. Why is this so? We might answer, poetically, “because love is eternal.” Or more prosaically, “because love’s hormones are eternal.” There is a science of attraction, although it’s not as interesting to the heart as the troubadour’s plaintive song.

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     As a matter of fact, love and romance have nothing to do with the heart! It’s all in the brain. Here is where the impulses of affection live, where the emotional flutter of the heart begins—leading us to mislocate its source and invent the valentine. Shakespeare had it right:

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Love looks not with the eyes but with the mind,

And therefore is winged Cupid painted blind

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     The hypothalamus, deep in the brain, controls production of the sex hormones, testosterone and estrogen. When these release, libido increases. The emotion we call lust is the result.

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     The same brain region controls dopamine, secreted when we are attracted to someone, causing the heart to beat faster and elation to consume us. Serotonin production decreases, leading to loss of appetite and insomnia. But when we simply feel like cuddling, the hormone responsible, oxytocin, comes from the brain stem below, in the pea-sized pituitary gland.

When these chemicals of love and lust circulate, the brain shuts down the centers of reason in the pre-frontal cortex. Hence, we meet the irrational, can’t sleep, sweaty-palmed, love-struck and hapless victim of desire.

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       But, really, a valentine card with a brain on it instead of a heart would be a downer. Only the hormone adrenaline would respond. Its message: “run!”

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Ron Wetherington