This Is Your Brain On A Breakup
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Cognitive neuroscientists at Columbia University compared brain images of participants looking at picture of their exes to brain images of individuals prodded with a hot probe. The researchers found that same brain regions—the insula and anterior cingulate cortex—lit up when ruminating over a lost love as when experiencing physical pain. Another study, by researchers Lucy Brown and Helen Fisher, scanned the brain activity of 15 young adults who had experienced a recent unwanted breakup and reported still feeling passionately in love. When these participants viewed photographs of their former partners, the scans showed activity in several brain areas, including in the ventral tegmental (VTA) area, the ventral striatum, and the nucleus accumbens. These regions are parts of the brain’s reward/motivation system that communicates via release of the neurotransmitter dopamine. Dopamine is involved in both drug addiction and the early, obsessive stages of love. Therefore, those who have been rejected may experience cravings for their ex-partner similar to the way addicts crave a drug or people newly in love crave the presence of their beloved.
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