What Makes You Fall in Love-brain or the Heart ?

All along it was the heart that ruled the chamber of love, but now it seems that loyalties have changed to the brain, which seems to trigger this all consuming emotion, a recent insight has revealed.

Stephanie Ortigue at Syracuse University said that falling in love can elicit not only the same euphoric feeling as using cocaine, but also affects intellectual areas of the brain -what's more - it only takes about a fifth of a second to fall in love.

The Chemistry of Love: 'Love Map of the Brain' Shows How Heart Rules the Head
Being in love can spread electricity through your brain, literally, as a new study suggests.

Results from Ortigue's team revealed when a person falls in love, 12 areas of the brain work in tandem to release euphoria-inducing chemicals such as dopamine, oxytocin, adrenaline and vasopression.

The feeling also affects sophisticated cognitive functions, such as mental representation, metaphors and body image.

So, does the heart fall in love, or the brain?

Love Can Be A Painkiller Too!
Passionate love can soothe pain, literally, Stanford University researchers have found. It apparently activates the same dopamine-oriented centers of the brain that tune in to illicit drugs.

"I would say the brain, but the heart is also related because the complex concept of love is formed by both bottom-up and top-down processes from the brain to the heart and vice versa," said Ortigue.

"Some symptoms we sometimes feel as a manifestation of the heart may sometimes be coming from the brain," she added.

US Teens Love to Text
Market tracker Nielsen Co. on Thursday released a study confirming what many US parents already knew: teens love to use mobile phones to swap text messages. If it seems like American

The team also found that blood levels of nerve growth factor, or NGF were also high in couples, which had just fallen in love. This molecule involved plays an important role in the social chemistry of humans, or the phenomenon 'love at first sight.'

"These results confirm love has a scientific basis," said Ortigue.

The findings have major implications for neuroscience and mental health research because when love doesn't work out, it can be a significant cause of emotional stress and depression.

By identifying the parts of the brain stimulated by love, doctors and therapists can better understand the pains of love-sick patients.

The results of the study are published in the Journal of Sexual Medicine.

Source-ANI