The science of love

I saw this program in the Naked Science series the other day and noted the following interesting points:

Women in love have more blood flowing through their hippocampus.
Hippocampus is a part of brain and is concerned with memory. More blood flow means that the area is more active. Supposedly women recall their beloveds more and they talk about them a lot with their female friends.

Men and women prefer people who have immune systems different from them.
In their study they found out that men and women had very different immune systems from the partners they chose. They interpreted it as a tool of better survival. Two different immune systems provide a larger range of immunity to the offspring and helps in a better fight against diseases and thus better survival.

People prefer people having symmetry.
In an experiment they took the sweaty shirts of a group of men who had just played basketball and asked a group of women to smell the shirts and fill out a paper. The shirts were all white. They found out that women preferred men having more symmetry. (Symmetry is reflected in body odour?) Symmetry is attractive. But they found out that PERFECT symmetry is unattractive! Through graphic programming they replaced one half of the face with the reflection of the other half and the face looked ugly! So no one is perfectly symmetrical. They also found out that twenty four hours before ovulation women's ears and hands change shape to a very little fraction of length, making women more symmetrical and thus more attractive. (So if a man thinks that his beloved is looking more beautiful on a certain day, would it mean that she is ovulating and its just the right time? :-D) Humans are attracted by two other things according to their study: intelligence and body shape.

Fear and anxiety increases attractiveness and stimulates sexual drive.
Experiment: A woman gave the passing by men a certain survey form to fill and gave them her cell number in case they had any queries about the survey. She did this at two separate venues. At one place she was standing on bridge high above a fast flowing stream and the second time she was on the ground. The other day she got four times more calls from the men on bridge than on the ground!

Creativity and artistic behaviour increases sexual activity.
They said that artists have twenty five percent more sexual contacts than others. Well, I personally believed it before seeing this program and the only reason of paintings and music being prohibited in Islam, I could ever think of was exactly this. No second thought about why there is more sexual perversion, gays and all that, in media, acting and fashion designing etc.

Caudate nucleus was more stimulated in people in love.
Caudate nucleus is a part of brain of which one function out of many is to regulate the feelings of reward through the reward center. 'Recently, scientists have discovered the function of caudate in humans falling in love. When a group of college students were shown a photo of their beloved, both the caudate and the ventral tegmental areas lit up. These MRI brain scans suggest that the ventral tegmental floods the caudate with dopamine when falling in love' (Wikipedia) Now, is it possible to find out through an MRI that a person is in love or not? Not that easy. Interestingly they found out that cocaine also stimulates the same areas in brain; the reward centers. A person can do anything for his/her love and an addict can also do anything to obtain drugs (So being in love is like a drug addiction? And the other way round, do the people who abuse cocaine feel that they are in love?)

Pharmacology of love
Dopamine as I already said above increases in the caudate and ventral tegmental areas in people in love. They said that dopamine 'fuels romantic love' (Excess of dopamine causes psychosis and hallucinations. Any relation to people going mad in love? And can such people be treated with anti psychotic drugs?)
The other important drug is oxytocin which they called 'The cuddling chemical'. Oxytocin increases sexual drive and is released during intercourse. The more a couple has sex, the more oxytocin is released and the more they fall in love! Therefore people should not have with sex with someone they don't love! They found that oxytocin is important in forming monogamous pairs in certain mice. Oxytocin also increases trust and reduces fear!

Now the unanswered questions: Is love all a game of certain chemicals? How much control does a person has on love? Can the feelings of love be changed through chemicals? Can a person be 'made' to fall in love and can a person be made to forget his love just through drugs? Time and more research will tell :-)