Our conception of romantic love could not be more trite, nor can it be more covered with pleonasms and tautologies, and a myriad of inaccuracies, hints and intuitions that contradict six decades of scientific literature.
However, there are intuitions or simple physical manifestations that have been corroborated. Like the neurophysiological changes that take place in a brain in love .
Neuroimaging
Stephanie Cacioppo , a psychologist at the University of Chicago who has studied the neuroscience of romantic love for the past decade, explains that the process involves several complex changes, particularly in the brain’s reward system .
More specifically, in a 2012 review of the scientific literature on love, Lisa Diamond and Janna Dickenson, psychologists at the University of Utah, found that romantic love is more consistently associated with activity in two brain regions: the tegmental area. ventral (VTA) and the caudate nucleus .
These areas play an essential role in our reward pathway and regulate the neurotransmitter dopamine. In other words, during the early stages of love we miss your loved one because it makes you feel so good.
In fact, just thinking about your partner not only makes you feel good, it can also cushion pain, stress, and other negative feelings . One study , for example, has shown that women in love do better on cognitive tasks after their lover’s name is subliminally prompted.
These neural patterns of romantic love appear to be universal across different genders, cultures, and sexual orientations. Romantic and platonic love, for example, can be associated with unique neural signatures. And studies show that the neural processes in charge of sexual attraction and desire can occur alongside and sometimes overlap with those that regulate romantic love, but are largely distinct from them .
Be that as it may, then, it seems that finding someone special in our life is a safe and stable source of happiness, although we are not very good at choosing a partner, on many occasions. Maybe we need help. Big Data + machine learning algorithms in order to find your perfect match. The one that suits you. And, in addition, the offer will not be as limited as now (basically the people who live in your neighborhood or just beyond), but total (humanity). You can learn more about it in the following video: