In a new study, 55 pairs of loving parents thought about short stories about six different types of love while scientists used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to measure the participants’ brain activity.
According to experts, the activation of love in social situations occurs in the basal ganglia, the midline of the forehead, the precuneus, and the temporo-parietal junction at the back of the head. The most intense brain activity occurs when loving children, followed by romantic love.
With parental love, neurons deep in the brain’s reward system in the striatum were activated, and this was not observed with any other type of love.
The study showed that brain activity is affected not only by the proximity of the love object, but also who it is: a person, a pet, or nature.
Compassionate love for strangers produced less intense reward and less brain activation than love in close relationships. However, love of nature activates the brain’s reward system and visual areas but not its social areas.
Unlike love for pets or nature, all forms of interpersonal love activate areas of the brain associated with social cognition. But there was one exception. The human brain can tell whether a person has a pet by asking, “You’re lying on the couch at home, and your pet cat runs up to you. The cat curls up next to you and purrs sleepily. Do you like your pet?” The areas of the brain associated with socialization were more active in those with pets than in those without pets.
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Source: Ferra
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