Although reams of sentimental poetry, plays and love songs might disagree, scientists are always quick to point out that love is felt not in the heart, but in the brain.
Now, thanks to a new study by researchers at Aalto University in Finland, romantically inclined scientists can get even more precise.
From romantic love for your partner to the love you feel for your dog, incredible maps reveal which brain regions are activated by different types of love.
Although romantic love is felt strongly in the social regions of the brain, a parent’s love for his or her children produces the most powerful reaction of all.
Dr Pärttyli Rinne, a philosopher and researcher who led the study, said: “In paternal love, there was a profound activation of the brain’s reward system in the striatum area while imagining love, and this was not observed with any other type of love.”
Researchers have mapped brain activation while experiencing love, to reveal exactly where different types of love are felt. Pictured: the areas of the brain most often associated with interpersonal love
To see exactly where love was felt in the brain, researchers recruited 55 parents who described themselves as being in a loving relationship.
While in an fMRI machine, these participants were read a series of short stories, each describing a different type of love.
For example, to evoke the feeling of parental love, participants were told: “You see your newborn child for the first time. The baby is soft, healthy, and vigorous – the greatest wonder of your life. You feel love for the little one.”
To provide a baseline measure for comparison, participants were also given some exceptionally boring neutral scenarios, such as looking out a bus window.
55 participants were placed in a functional MRI scanner while they were read stories detailing different types of love. Pictured here, the brain experiencing romantic love
The researchers found that most interpersonal forms of love activated the same areas to varying degrees, but the most intense of all was parental love.
Parental love activates deep regions of the brain’s reward system, something not seen in any other type of love (archive image)
Participants were then left sitting for 10 seconds to imagine themselves in the scenario while researchers took careful recordings of their brain states.
By combining the results from each of the participants, the researchers were able to create a map for six different types of love.
Dr. Rinne had already mapped how different types of love are felt in the body, but this provides a first glimpse into the neurological processes behind the experience.
Most types of love involving people were found to activate similar areas of the social regions of the brain.
Dr. Rinne says, ‘The activation pattern for love is generated in social situations in the basal ganglia, midline of the forehead, precuneus, and temporoparietal junction on the sides of the back of the head.’
The main difference between the types of love was the intensity of the brain activation they triggered.
Romantic love, as well as other interpersonal forms of love, tend to be felt in the basal ganglia, the midline of the forehead, and the back and sides of the head. Pictured: Crazy Stupid Love
The better we know someone, the greater the activation of brain regions associated with social activity. Pictured: brain activation associated with loving a friend
Compared to the love of a friend, the love we feel for strangers (pictured) produces relatively little brain activation.
For example, compare the brain map associated with the love you feel for a stranger with the one associated with the love you feel for a friend.
The closer someone is to us, the more intensely the social regions of our brain are activated in response to that feeling of love.
The most powerful activation of all was the love experienced by a parent towards a child, followed by romantic love.
However, the brain activation pattern was influenced not only by the proximity to the object of our love, but also by the type of object.
Love for pets and love for nature produce activation patterns that are clearly different from those produced by love for other human beings.
For example, a love of nature activates reward center regions associated with visual processing and spatial awareness.
The type of brain activation observed also varied depending on the type of thing loved. A love for pets (pictured) produced very different activation patterns than another person.
Love of nature activated brain regions associated with spatial awareness and visual processing (pictured)
The only exception was found in participants who were also pet owners.
Researchers found that living with their furry friend produced such significant changes in their thought processes that they could identify the pet’s owners by their brain activity.
Participants were read a sentence such as: ‘You’re at home, lying on the couch, and your cat comes up to you. The cat curls up next to you and purrs sleepily. You love your pet.’
For pet owners, and no one else, hearing this story also activates the social areas of the brain typically associated with love for humans.
Researchers had previously mapped where in the body different types of love were felt by asking participants where they tended to feel the experience most.
Researchers found that participants who owned pets of their own experienced brain activation in the social regions of the brain when they imagined a scenario involving their pets.
This supports a growing body of evidence that humans’ love for our pets can truly transcend species boundaries.
Recent research has found that when humans look into their pets’ eyes, oxytocin pathways are activated in a way similar to the mother-baby bond.
Dr Rinne says: ‘When looking at pet love and the brain activity associated with it, the areas of the brain associated with sociability statistically reveal whether the person is a pet owner or not.
‘For pet owners, these areas are more active than for non-pet owners.