Question

Please explain what love measuring by a scanner, the love brain network, and the speed of love; what kind of reflection we can get about this topic is. Thank you so much.

Answer 1

Love is an emotional feeling which is accompanied by positive affect. It is one of the basic emotions that gives a pleasurable sensation. Love is based on affection, intimacy, liking, and other positive behaviors. Scanning love or measuring love in this context means to assess the degree of love that a person has for something or someone. People used to love nonhuman bodies such as place, profession, behavior or any object as well as to human bodies such as girlfriend, one's spouse, mother, father or children. These different kinds of love are based on different behavioral and emotional factors that also show different brain activities. Love can be accessed by two methods - psychological and neuroimaging. Psychological methods consist of psychological instruments such as scales, questionnaires or tests to assess the degree of love. For example, Zick Rubin (1970) developed two scales - one for assessing the feeling of liking and another one for the feeling of loving. Neuroimaging methods consist of imaging techniques (such as Computed Tomography-CT or Magnetic Resonance Imaging-MRI) to scan changes in the brain’s chemical characteristics (level of glucose and oxygen) in response to the love-related stimulation that is given to the individual being scanned. Studies have found the neural network and certain regions of the brain are primarily responsible for love, pleasure, reward and romantic relationships. For example, the reward circuit that consists of the neural bridge between the ventral striatum of the basal ganglia and the ventral tegmental area in the midbrain. This connection is considered as the reward circuit because it basically synthesizes dopamine (a neurotransmitter) which is essential for rewarding sensation and therefore, it is helpful in inducing the feeling of love. The amygdala and the entire limbic system are also involved in regulating love feelings. So, based on the topic, the best reflection would probably be the explanation of love feelings in terms of the bran's physiology and neuroimaging findings.