I love you, with all my brain.

– in the last decade, and thanks to the advance of neuroimaging techniques, is carried out diverse works that have discovered the neurological basis of love. Wants on Valentine’s day, the Sociedad Española de Neurología (SEN) to remember the involvement of neural processes that occur in our brain in this feeling so characteristic of the human being: is our brain which falls

-up to 12 areas of the brain appear to be involved in the feeling of love

-loving sentiment causes neural changes in related areas of the brain with the perception

– the brains of men and women don’t behave in the same way to love

-love and hate some of the same brain regions stimulate

Spain, 2012-February is mainly thanks to the advances that have occurred in neuroimaging techniques which allowed determine much of brain circuitsNeural structures and the neurotransmitters that make us enamoremos. In the last decade, a significant number of studies that have put revealed the role that they play several parts of our brain (hypothalamus, prefrontal cortex, the amygdala, the nucleus accumbens, area front tegmental, etc.) in love has been published. These research also suggests that both love and fidelity have a clear basis of neurological, where neurotransmitters like adrenaline, dopamine, serotonin, oxytocin, vasopressin, etc. are key elements to understand why we love.

Some of the most recent works have been performed by the DRA. Stephanie Ortigue who felt that to 12 human brain areas are involved in the feeling of love ”, explains Dr. Jesus Porta-Etessam, Director of the culture Área of the SEN. The DRA. Stephanie Ortigue was even a little beyond considering it only took half a second in fall in love with us – because that is the time it takes for our brain in releasing molecules neurotrasmisoras which generate different emotional responses – or loving sentiment causes neural changes in areas of the brain related to perceptionwhich may explain the fact that loving people can find your partner much more special than the rest.

Also thanks to the use of techniques of neuroimaging, DRA. Helen Fisher found that neural activity is different according to whether love, attachment to the couple or sexual desire, by what our brain is not activated similarly in the lasting relationships that in the initial stages of falling in love. And, also, that the brains of men and women experience love differently. While the men, when they fall in love, seem to have increased activity in the brain region associated with Visual stimuli, women activate more areas associated with memory ”, points out Dr. Jesus Porta-Etessam.

But it is probably to Dr. Semir Zeki – who recently was for the first time in Spain guest speaker and Sen in the courses of the Escorial – who can consider pioneer in the neurological study of love. One of their multiple investigations, shows that both love and hate spur some of the same brain regions. But while love seems to inhibit part of zones where the sound ideas, the overactive hatred are processed ”, says Dr. Jesus Porta-Etessam.

Neuroimaging techniques have allowed closer to the knowledge of many of the behaviors that characterize living beings. These investigations and many others, have been possible thanks to the study of the activity of the different brain areas, which has allowed to check that the functioning of the mind is not only limited to cognitive processes. In addition, thanks to neuroimaging, have been progress in the study of the multiple problems such as stroke, dementia or parkisionismos neurological pathologies ”, concludes Dr. Jesus Porta-Etessam.