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CNN Live Sunday

Behind the Science of Love

Aired February 17, 2002 - 17:56   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: Well, we now have a love story of sorts to tell you about. Researchers in Atlanta have been studying how chemicals and hormones can affect our feelings and contribute to a long-lasting relationship. CNN's Elina Fuhrman gives us a look at behind the science of love.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ELINA FUHRMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Love at first sight, the romantic ideal laid out in the movie "Four Weddings and a Funeral." The passion of a kiss captured in "Forget Paris." Movie fantasy of reality? People want to believe the eternal bliss is real, and the feeling of magic and ecstasy can actually last forever.

But scientists and psychologists say this kind of love may be dependent on a cocktail of chemicals acting on the brain.

JOAN MILLER, PSYCHOLOGIST: They are dopamine and neuroepinephrine (ph) and phenophalamine (ph), which is sometimes called PEA. And these chemicals go to the limbic system of our brain, which is the emotional center of our brain, so that's where we begin to feel this euphoria and this good feeling, and we often call that love or true love, but it's really the chemistry.

FUHRMAN: The chemistry works wonders, but fizzles after several months to four years.

MILLER: When literally we don't have that chemical anymore, we feel that emptiness. We feel the disillusionment.

FUHRMAN: In other words, the honeymoon comes to an end. But it can take couples to the place where real love can blossom, and once that corner is turned, it's once again up to the brain chemistry. Chemicals like oxytocin responsible for bonding, and vasoprecin (ph) the monogamy gene, can make or break relationships.

Neurobiologists at Emory University in Atlanta have injected one of those chemicals into mice-like mammals, known as vole (ph) and it induced them to bond and mate for life.

DR. LARRY YOUNG, NEUROBIOLOGIST: Our research shows that oxytocin is what's really important for the bonding, the long-term attachments.

FUHRMAN: This male vole which was treated with vasoprecin met the female on the left the night before.

YOUNG: Now we'll just give them a little bit of a time.

FUHRMAN: The next day, he had a chance to meet a second female, the one on the right. But as you can see, after sniffing her and looking at her, he went back to cuddle with the original one.

This research is maybe the first glimpse at how chemicals released in the brain can alter social attachment between humans. Who knows, maybe years from now people will think nothing of popping a love pill, and wonder how the world ever survived without it.

YOUNG: I'm not sure that we'll ever use this research to develop a love pill, but it will help us understand the processes by which this love and attachment occurs.

FUHRMAN: Researchers aren't certain the chemistry of love is as straightforward in humans as it is in voles, but they're almost certain in one thing, that love is an addiction.

Elina Fuhrman, CNN, Atlanta.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

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