You know the feeling. All that C 43 H 66 N 12 O 12 S2 is flooding your OXT protein receptors, and C 8 H 11 NO 2 flows through your prefrontal cortex. It is a heady feeling – the essence of love.
You may not recognise the mechanism, but this is the reality behind perhaps the most overwhelming of our sensations: love. Like all other processes in the body, love — whether between parent and child or between partners — is pure chemistry.
Examining the unsentimental science of love does not necessarily reduce the pleasure of the sensation. But it could help us to understand the often strange effects that love has on our thoughts, behaviour, and health. It might even inspire you to revive a love that was otherwise long past.
Love comes in three versions
We all understand that
