Instructions: After watching “The Brain on Love”write an essay answering the below questions.  Make sure that you support your responses by offering paraphrased corroboration from the text or examples from your own life. Your response should be no longer than 3 typewritten pages and should be submitted through the course website. Your essay should be a cohesive composition with complete paragraphs and sentences (not numerically organized answers), with proper spelling and punctuation, and satisfying all of the homework formatting requirements.

1.Describe what Helen Fisher found from her brain scans of 17 people who were happily in love?  How does obsession relate to romantic love?

2.Based on her scientific research, what is Fisher’s view of romantic love?  Explain how she relates this view to Plato and to addictions?  

3.How does intimacy differ between women and men?  What speculation does Fisher offer to support these gender differences in intimacy?  Do you agree with her hypothesis?  Why or why not?

(1)  In purely medical terms, Helen Fisher's research into the neurobiology of love found increased activity in a small area found in the base of the brain (ventral tegmental area). The significance of this spot is that it is densely packed with dopamine and serotonin neurons, and both of these chemicals are stimulants‒ part of the brain's reward system. However, this mechanism is considerably subliminal; below our conscious perceptions, and in fact part of what neuroscientists call the “reptilian” brain. Love gives us this “warm fuzzy” feeling that becomes addictive; indeed Ms. Fisher notes that a cocaine high originates from the same area.

Obsession is common in romantic love, especially the beginning stages. My favorite line from Fisher is “someone is camping in your head.” You find yourself thinking of them within every waking moment that you can. And I would say that the compulsion ties directly in with the reward chemistry going on beneath the surface, because being in this love-state feels good and one wants more and more.

I personally have experienced this several times in my life. While it feels wonderful during the relatively short time one undergoes it, I've found my behavior somewhat frivolous and embarrassing in retrospect. It can cause you to make some really poor decisions, and once, in my case, this was life changing‒ dissolving my first marriage. I also concur that the obsession will worsen when one is rejected, as I've been there and done that as well. Thankfully for most people at least, these feelings, which approach psychosis, will abate within a few weeks or months.

(2)  Fisher's central view of romantic love is that it is almost instinctual, as part of the mating drive that compels us. She is quick to separate it from the sex drive however, explaining that sexual desire only brings us into the agora, putting ourselves on the market. The romantic drive narrows the focus onto one potential mate, thereby making the process more efficient.

Plato considered the romantic love impulse equivalent to the basic human needs such as hunger or thirst, noting love as a “constant state of need”, and likewise from that angle Fisher compares it to addiction. The common traits are striking, including how we focus and obsess on the lover, develop a craving for them, allow our reality to become skewed for their sake, and are willing to take big risks. She further develops the idea with the analogy of romance (particularly a failing one) to a drug habit, demonstrating that they share three components: tolerance (needing more and more); withdrawal (separation anxiety or pains); and relapse (seeking someone/something else).

(3)  I enjoyed Fisher's insight and theory of the differences in male and female intimacy, and it is a phenomenon that any perceptive person could observe. Women will tend to orient themselves more directly in front, face-to face, with whomever they are addressing. Men show a preference to stand more to one's side, so that both parties are facing the same direction.

Fisher's educated guess is that this owes a great deal to evolutionary and other very practical purposes that developed over the eons, going back to our hunter/gatherer days‒ women facing their babies and small children directly to soothe or teach them; whereas men were often out “on the hunt” with their gazes sharing a focus on the terrain ahead or surrounding them. I find it a very plausible theory because evolution is a slow process that still hasn't “realized” mankind's very abrupt changes within the past couple of centuries. Deep inside, in our reptilian brains, we're all still out on a savanna looking for food and shelter, surrounded by predators. This is why the mating and romantic dilemmas are so common in these modern times. Our deep pasts and our current industrialism and technology are out of sync.