Study shows we are addicted to love

Main Category: Alcohol / Addiction / Illegal Drugs
Article Date: 24 Jan 2004 - 0:00 PDT


You might as well face it, you're addicted to lurve . . . the lyric is true, say scientists who claim the mechanism that gets us hooked on drugs also keeps us faithfully fretting about what to do for Valentine's Day.

Researchers at the US Centre for Behavioural Neuroscience based their study on prairie voles because they mate for life, unlike the usual play-the-field mouse.

They found that a reward mechanism known to cause addiction is also likely to regulate pair bonding between faithful animals such as voles, and celebs like Chris Martin and Gwyneth Paltrow.

The study discovered that two receptors at the front of a prairie vole's brain, which are associated with pair-bonding, are also involved in the system that causes addiction to sex, food and drugs. The scientists say falling in love stimulates this addictive response.

The finding, in the Journal of Comparative Neurology, could also help our understanding of social-attachment disorders such as autism.

More evidence that emotions are on the brain comes from a study showing that oestrogen makes women more vulnerable to stress.

The Yale University study says high levels of the hormone may make women prone to depression and post-traumatic stress disorder. The finding, in Molecular Psychiatry, may explain why stress-related mental illness is twice as common in women.

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