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Originally posted by
Sacchi
I was wondering about that, too. The whole book was fascinating, but I especially liked the images from the neuroscience studies, like this part:
"Dr. Fisher wanted to test whether the neurotransmitters dopamine, norepinephrine, and
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I was wondering about that, too. The whole book was fascinating, but I especially liked the images from the neuroscience studies, like this part:
"Dr. Fisher wanted to test whether the neurotransmitters dopamine, norepinephrine, and serotonin were components of romantic love, since they inspire all the behaviors we think of in someone who’s been hit by Cupid, including addiction, anxiety, exhilaration, loss of appetite, and obsession. She was right. When the subjects looked at photos of their beloved, specific parts of their brains lit up like pinball machines. Or better, like an Indian summer evening sky.
“When I first looked at those brain scans, with the active brain regions lit up in bright yellow and deep orange, I felt the way I feel on a summer night when I gaze at the sparkling universe: overwhelming awe,” she writes.
This is beautiful not just because we can empathize with her feelings (with our intact Theory of Mind) but because it shows how alienated people are from their own bodies. Our bodies perform so many functions we never see; we are fascinated by them and want to see them. That’s why museum shows like Bodies: The Exhibition are so popular. We are Narcissus. We want to see ourselves. We want to know. Now fMRI scans are able to show us more about the mystery we carry around in our heads. Awe is the perfect word for it."
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That's another of the things about neuroscience that's so interesting...I think we're often very quick to judge ourselves and others on emotions without realizing that they really are chemical reactions, physical changes that take place, and thinking of it that way gives you a chance to take a breathe and think "No, I'm not overreacting, my adrenaline is just up," or whatever feeling may be. It gives us another window as to why we act, react, overreact nd interact....and that, in turn, gives us the chance to work with it and change it if we feel like we need to.
And that's what I mean about Helen Fisher's writing...she does really write about the science of love in a way that people who are more in it for the love than the science can entirely relate to!
