Brain Vs Heart Vs Sexual Urges

[pointzero]

When you're in love.... is it the brain that's acting and telling you you're in love or is it the heart?

[MiSsEd StReSs]

for me it's the heart... emotional kasi ako masyado...

 

kahit ayaw ng utak ko at dinedictate na mali basta nafeel ko yun na yun kahit pa mali kadalasan...

[iwalkalone]

definitely my heart.....wala naman kaseng silbi brains ko eh....buseet talaga...di maasahan :thumbsdownsmiley:

[kenRxxx]

dapat both

[lohengrimtams]

dapat both. its sort of a balancing act between the two.

[Guest ||princess||]

heart is merely a muscle that pumps blood. When we love someone, that's because our brain did. our actions and our decisions are results of what our brains perceived. we love someone because our brain believes that this is the person for us by setting standards or sometimes we just know that we love this person for reasons our brain can't process. so i guess when you love someone, it is because your brain tells you that under the present circumstances, you feel that way for the person. however, we are soo stubborn that we dont follow our own brain. we know for a fact that we are not supposed to love this person but we continue to. i guess with that, the stubborn side of the brain is winning.

[CodenameV]

The brain determines the initial attraction and compatibility between two people. The heart decides whether they will stay together or breakup. So the answer is both the heart and the brain are important for relationships.

[lordraven12]

depende yan sir, kung looks lang, malamng brain lang yan, pero kung sa mga ginagawa mo sya naappreciate, sir heart na yun.... tandaan mas maganda mag mahal ang puso kaysa isip

[Flash Sentry]

You can never take the heart away from romance; it's part of it, always. Of course, when deciding, you should use both. I said both, because one might follow his heart, but might not be thinking logically as well. One should think logically and use his heart, then decide what's best.

[the messiah]

for me its the brain, the brain is mightier than the heart hehe

[BEaST-RiPPed]

When you're in love.... is it the brain that's acting and telling you you're in love or is it the heart?

 

 

 

ang alam ko utak ang nagsasabi nun nde ung heart dhil lahat ng ikikilos at sasabihin ntin bumabase sa signals na pinaparating ng utak. ang puso ay para lng tyo makahinga at mbuhay wla ng ibang function yan. ang pinoy ksi gustong gusto naiinlove kya kapag nkilala ang iba khit na ang desisyon ay nasa utak sinasabi galing sa puso para romantic...

get real people!

[astig_supah_ganda]

utak ang nakakaisip na mahal mo ung tao, may nararamdaman ka dahil sa utak mo.. at sya din ang nag uutos na tumibok ng mabilis ang puso mo kapag naeexcite kang makita ang mahal mo..

 

 

 

[Raizenne]

Dapat parehong gumana...

[TNT Hsia]

Parang gulong yan ng motorsiklo. Kailangan aligned.

[Brando_Matias]

I Love You From the Bottom of My Brain: The Neurobiology Behind Love

Miranda White

 

You're at a typical weekend party. You spot someone across the room. They look over in your direction. "Wow, they're so beautiful," you think. You want desperately to go over and talk to them, but at the very thought of it, your heart starts racing and your palms begin to sweat. Looking over at them again, you see that amazingly enough they are coming over to you. Even before speaking to them, you feel like you have just fallen in love. Is this feeling really love at first sight? Or is it merely the release of hormones in the brain? What causes the feeling of being in love? How can we know for sure if we really are in love?

 

Love is one of the strongest and most elusive emotions. Nearly every person seeks to experience the feeling of being in love. And once it is achieved, one's life is forever changed. Yet, most people would have extreme difficulty describing what exactly love is, how they know for sure that they are in love, or why love is so universally important. Understanding the neurobiology behind love might help to give us a more clear perspective on social bonding and raises the question of whether love is nothing more than the release of certain chemicals.

 

The hormone oxytocin plays a significant role in many animals' instinct to love and form social bonds. In fact, it has been called jokingly, "the cuddle hormone." (1) Oxytocin is a small protein composed of nine amino acids. It is produced in the hypothalamus and is released by the pituitary gland. (2) Oxytocin is also produced in the ovaries of women and the testes of men. However, the hormone's most well known function is specific to females. (3) First, it plays an integral role in the delivery of a baby. When a woman goes into labor, oxytocin levels increase. This stimulates contraction in the smooth muscle of the uterine walls, thereby facilitating delivery. Secondly, oxytocin plays a role in milk letdown in nursing mothers. Milk is initially released into small sacs, called alveoli, which are surrounded by smooth muscle cells. Oxytocin stimulates contractions of this smooth muscle, causing the milk to be released to the mouth of a nursing baby. (3) Lastly, and most importantly, oxytocin causes the formation of maternal behavior. Successful reproduction and survival for many species relies upon a mother's attachment to and caring for her offspring. There is a drastic increase in the levels of oxytocin in the body and brain of a woman who is in labor. This upsurge is the main cause of the establishment of the strong bond of love a mother initially feels for her child. (4)

 

It is very strange to think that mothers nurture and care for their children mainly due to the release of a hormone at the moment of birth. We tend to believe that the relationship between a mother and a child goes beyond biology - that there is something much deeper than merely instinct or the release of chemicals that causes a mother to love. However, there is very convincing evidence that proves that hormones like oxytocin are largely the cause of maternal behavior. A number of experiments have been done, showing the importance of oxytocin in the formation of the mother-child relationship. In many species (for example sheep and rats), blocking the release of oxytocin caused mothers to abandon their young. Similarly, when virgin female rats were injected with oxytocin, they exhibited mother-like behavior. They cared for and cuddled with the offspring of other females as if they were their own. (1)

 

Oxytocin does not only play a role in the bond between mother and child but also between two mates. The attachment formed between sexual partners is predominantly caused by the release of oxytocin during sexual intercourse. Oxytocin is intricately tied with the biology of sex - it causes penile erections and shortens both the time for ejaculation and the refractory period after ejaculation. (4) The release of oxytocin can be learned. In other words, after repeatedly having sex with the same partner, simply seeing him or her could set off the release of oxytocin. As a result, one becomes attached to that particular partner and learns to prefer them to other possible mates. Thus the monogamy practiced by humans and other species is also the result of the release of oxytocin.

 

To prove that oxytocin creates monogamy and social bonding, an experiment was conducted using a mouse-like rodent called a prairie vole. Prairie voles, much like humans, form life-long monogamous relationships. Both parents live together and meticulously care for their offspring. Both males and females show a strong preference to their mate over other voles, and the male aggressively guards the female from possible harm. On the other hand, montane voles do not form lasting bonds nor do they protect and care for their young. They are promiscuous maters, showing no loyalty to one partner over another. Researchers blocked the release of oxytocin in prairie voles to test if it was the key ingredient in their monogamous preferences. Not so surprisingly, mating pairs formed no lasting bonds. In a similar experiment, scientists did not allow the prairie voles to mate, but they administered oxytocin to the females and vasopressin (a hormone much like oxytocin found mainly in males) to the males. Even without sex, the voles still created monogamous social bonds and strong preference to their mate over other voles. (5)

 

Unfortunately, there has been no real data regarding oxytocin levels in humans in relation to the formation of relationships. And there are, of course, some very significant differences between voles and humans. Obviously the vole brain and the human brain are not identical, nor are their mating habits or reasons for forming social attachments. (5) However, studying the biology behind love and social bonding in other animals could help us in understanding our own species. The vole experiments show how extraordinarily important oxytocin is in the formation of social relationships. (6)

 

Knowing that love is so chemically influenced and based brings up many interesting issues. It is strange to think that motherly love and romantic or sexual love are so intricately related, both caused by the release of the same hormone. We tend to see our mother's love for us as completely different from her love for her husband. In much the same way, there is something uneasy about that thought that merely one hormone could be the reason behind our most intimate social relationships and one of our most intense emotions. Is love nothing more than instinct? Does the way we feel about the people we love really have anything to do with that person or is it simply connected to hormones? Are there really no emotions that are beyond the brain? Understanding the role that hormones like oxytocin play will be very instrumental in our figuring out just how much neurobiology dictates the perception of our emotions.

Edited August 26, 2006 by Brando_Matias