Banking on the connection between romantic relationships and chemical reactions in our body, scientists are trying to find the chemical formula that will allow people to fall in and out of love – without the burden of any emotions.
Larry Young, a neuroscientist at Atlanta's Emory University School of Medicine, says that it may soon be unveiled that emotions like love are directly triggered by biochemical events in the human brain. Once that is proved, a love pill may be invented to activate this chemical reaction. And then there could be another pill to counter the same reaction.
Love may just become convenient that way.
Experiments on prairie voles, which are short-tailed, mouse-like animals, have shown that sexual bonding can be initiated or blocked by certain chemicals in the brain.
“(The voles) are monogamous. That is, they form a life-long bond with a partner. We have been studying the chemistry behind that,'' said Young.
On injecting the chemical hormone oxytocin
define into the brain of a female prairie vole, she was found to have suddenly shed her monogamy and got attracted for the nearest male.
But the bonding lasted only as long as the chemical supply to her brain was maintained. They drifted apart as soon as the chemical hormone to her brain was stopped. "We can block the oxytocin and she can mate with the male ... but she'll never bond with him."
According to Young, “The hormone interacts with the reward and reinforcement system driven by the neurotransmitter dopamine - the same circuitry that drugs such as nicotine, cocaine and heroine act on in humans to produce euphoria and addiction.''
Interestingly, Oxytocin has been known to influence human’s social behavior. "People who inhale oxytocin become more trusting ... They engage in more eye contact ... (It) tunes them into the social world. Dopamine gives us a reward, so you feel good," Young said.
If those chemicals can cause attraction and revulsion, can they be injected into pills to achieve similar effects on our own desire? Banking on the connection between of romantic relationships and chemical reactions in our body, scientists are trying to find the chemical formula that will allow people to fall in and out of love – without the burden of any emotions.
Larry Young, a neuroscientist at Atlanta's Emory University School of Medicine, says that it may soon be unveiled that emotions like love are directly triggered by biochemical events in the human brain. Once that is proved, a love pill may be invented to activate this chemical reaction. And then there could be another pill to counter the same reaction.
Love may just become convenient that way.
Experiments on prairie voles, which are short-tailed, mouse-like animals, have shown that sexual bonding can be initiated or blocked by certain chemicals in the brain.
“(The voles) are monogamous. That is, they form a life-long bond with a partner. We have been studying the chemistry behind that,'' said Young.
On injecting the chemical hormone oxytocin into the brain of a female prairie vole, she was found to have suddenly shed her monogamy and got attracted for the nearest male.
But the bonding lasted only as long as the chemical supply to her brain was maintained. They drifted apart as soon as the chemical hormone to her brain was stopped. "We can block the oxytocin and she can mate with the male ... but she'll never bond with him."
According to Young, “The hormone interacts with the reward and reinforcement system driven by the neurotransmitter dopamine - the same circuitry that drugs such as nicotine, cocaine and heroine act on in humans to produce euphoria and addiction.''
Interestingly, Oxytocin has been known to influence human’s social behavior. "People who inhale oxytocin become more trusting ... They engage in more eye contact ... (It) tunes them into the social world. Dopamine gives us a reward, so you feel good," Young said.
If those chemicals can cause attraction and revulsion, can they be injected into pills to achieve similar effects on our own desire? Probably, says Young.
Creating a cocktail of these chemicals in the form of a love pill could create attraction or revulsion between two people.
Besides the luxury of love on desire, the drugs could be an inexpensive solution for the thousands of couples who spend a fortune on marital therapy.
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