Excellent post on the neuroscience of difference between motherly and romantic love:
"Maternal and romantic love are not all the same, there is specific overlapping activity in the central nervous system as well as differences mostly in activity. Maternal and romantic love share the pattern of cortical de-activation in particular the frontal cortex. This might account for the somewhat suspended judgment when it concerns their own children. Mothers as well as lovers are a good deal more patient and less critical when it’s about their children or loved one respectively. In maternal love there is a strong activation of parts of the brain that are specific for faces. This is for the importance of reading children’s facial expressions, to ensure their well being, and therefore the constant attention of the mother for the face of the child. Another difference is the involvement of the hypothalamus only in romantic love not in maternal love, since the hypothalamus is associated with sexual arousal."
Important revelation is the pattern of de-activation of frontal cortex, which causes us to lose rationality and biased when it comes to child in motherly love and lover in case of romantic love. Some important "neural representations" are shown in the picture and surprise, surprise Dopamine is involved in romantic love too.
"The areas that are involved are, in the cortex, the medial insula, anterior cingulate, and hippocampus and, in the subcortex, parts of the striatum and probably also the nucleus accumbens, which together constitute core regions of the reward system…….the areas that are activated in response to romantic feelings are largely coextensive with those brain regions that contain high concentrations of a neuro-modulator that is associated with reward, desire, addiction and euphoric states, namely dopamine. Like two other modulators that are linked to romantic love, oxytocin and vasopressin"
Important revelation is the pattern of de-activation of frontal cortex, which causes us to lose rationality and biased when it comes to child in motherly love and lover in case of romantic love. Some important "neural representations" are shown in the picture and surprise, surprise Dopamine is involved in romantic love too.
"The areas that are involved are, in the cortex, the medial insula, anterior cingulate, and hippocampus and, in the subcortex, parts of the striatum and probably also the nucleus accumbens, which together constitute core regions of the reward system…….the areas that are activated in response to romantic feelings are largely coextensive with those brain regions that contain high concentrations of a neuro-modulator that is associated with reward, desire, addiction and euphoric states, namely dopamine. Like two other modulators that are linked to romantic love, oxytocin and vasopressin"
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