It gives us comfort and chances and makes us yearn to merge and become one with another person. Perhaps even the most powerful of all. People stupids love is happiness sorrow jealousy sexual desire the kind of love that we humans experience doesnt exist in the same way. Its very interesting to investigate why love in this intensity only developed in humans hate unmentionable winched on this. I think its important not to preserve the word love for a while magical place but to see how it plays out every day and. People think of love as a very passive experience you just fall into love or you fall out of love and in a way thats very mature and their response. Because if youre trying to make a Partnership Work with someone you want to understand a little bit about how love works. Thats exactly what scientists around the world want to find out what exactly is love what happens in our hearts and brains and how can you make love last a lifetime. Love is a basic need as babies we experience it for the 1st time parental love is instinctual and unconditional. In the best Case Scenarios mothers and fathers loved everything about their babies the way they look the way they smell the sounds they make. For a mother being close to her child can eclipse all other needs this is biologically preprogramed because human babies cannot survive without parental care. For them parental love is as important as food and drink. Heres. Why. The american psychologist terry harlow proved this in the 1950 s. With controversial experiments in which he separated baby monkeys from their mothers will take the baby monkey put in a wire. Harlow wanted to prove the importance of caregiving and companionship the monkeys were fed from a bottle of milk hanging from a wire mother a 2nd mother had a face and a fur coat but no milk the monkeys breed. They went to the milk mother to drink but spent the rest of their time with their cuddly fur mother the monkeys that grew up in isolation later showed signs of severe psychological distress these experiments demonstrated for the 1st time how vital love companionship and nurturing are for infants. Researchers today employ less cruel techniques to find out how important love is for babies for example by analyzing their saliva when a child feel stressed or anxious the stress hormone cortisol can be found in its saliva. Joan and her mother here are taking part in a socalled still face test in which the mother is not allowed to show her child any affection for 2 minutes. Its come to us then now comes the still face the mother turns away and the child suddenly notices that the mother is no longer responding now and they argue and thats food and this can be a stressor for the baby and so now well analyze how the child responds. And it gets damaged. We can see that the child feels that too much time has passed without a response and shes not happy about it. And the more time when the mother is responsive to her babys emotions than a child knows if im sad if im angry my mother will be there for me kind of there are studies that show that there are links between this early mother child interaction and the capacity to bond in later life and tacked on on have been on the. So our experience of love during early infancy shapes our ability to form meaningful relationships later in life. But there are some mothers who cannot feel love for their babies for example because of postpartum depression. The researchers want to find out which factors influence the maternal bond by using brain scans to determine the blood flow to the reward center in the mothers brain they can measure maternal love. Super when youre ready well start the neurofeedback task im ready ok lets start. The researchers see the same baby photos as the mother lying in the m. R. I. Scanner a gauge shows how strongly the mothers reward center is activated the mother sees it too which allows her to assess the strength of her maternal bond this process is called neurofeedback. Life it was assuring us that we had here we can see that shes able to regulate her emotions and bring them into the green zone so shes a mother with a strong bond. But for a mother with a weak bond this is hard. Thats where we can use neurofeedback to train brain functions that are hypoactive meaning not active enough and give them a boost on the tivo built. Using the power of her brain the mother learns how to enhance the parent child bond and gets immediate feedback. Its a way to practice love. To see if she exercises her brain like a muscle over time this behavior becomes automatic maybe the next time she sees a picture of her baby she wont need a strategy on it the band will kick instinctively for the line from stoke on. We can practice love thanks to the biology of our brains our feelings are regulated by hormones and neurotransmitters it seems we can affect how theyre released im easy indeed earthly idea that you can influence such a complex process like feelings of attachment and bonding by regulating your psychobiology is something i find extremely fascinating with every guy thought on the thin edge of nothing for the us in the end the substance that intrigues scientists like beata ditson is called oxytocin it can be administered as a nasal spray but its mainly produced by the body itself. Oxytocin is a chemical substance produced in the brain. This neural hormone helps create the feeling of love. Thats why oxytocin is also d called the cuddle chemical. Via the bloodstream it carries its biochemical message throughout the body priming it for affection tenderness and trust. Oxytocin was discovered in 1906 as the hormone that triggers labor then scientists realized that it was also involved in lactation breastfeeding. Today we know that oxytocin also plays a role in the maternal bond and in caretaking behaviors. Scientists say that oxytocin regulates our social interactions and thus ensures the survival of our species the hormone isnt only found in humans but also in other social animals including worms ants and rats. Study in oxytocin in human as a like study in a pandoras box we dont know what is go in in the brain of humans and understand physiological role of folks at us and of course you needed models and the best model would be social animals. In these rats the researchers control the release of oxytocin with considerable of facts on the social behavior of the animals. If you simulate oxytocin the became more social they interact basically all the time and it sells oxytocin cells release oxytocin. Sniffing stroking cuddling researchers still know little about what triggers the release of oxytocin but one thing they do know is that without this hormone rats would be less social. And humans wouldnt fall in love infatuation is like a bio chemical explosion and oxytocin sends lovers hearts racing quite literally because the heart is particularly susceptible to its effects. Recent studies show that it can even produce the hug hormone itself. But love creates even greater chaos in the brain. Here it flicks so many biochemical switches that acute infatuation actually resembles a psychotic disorder. When it comes to our brains crazy in love isnt too far from the truth the neurobiologist lucy brown says that love is more than a feeling love is a drive like hunger and thirst and whats more love really does make us blind. Its the front of the brain that is constantly judging other people just as you walk down the street you see someone coming towards you you may notice their shoes you may notice how they walk is their hair along how unusual are they were constantly engaged in social judgments people who are in the early stages of romantic love. When we look at the functional activity shut this part of the brain down. You you just dont engage in social judgments of the person youre in love with you shut the you shut off that judgment. During infatuation the evolutionarily primitive structures of our brain take over its here that all these hormones are produced that influence our behavior so profoundly that love can feel out of our control. It may seem irrational for love to switch off common sense but for evolutionary biologist. The craziness of love makes evolutionarily speaking. From a biological viewpoint its fairly clear romantic love developed to benefit our offspring think about it even in a group of hunter gatherers it takes 34. 00 or 5 years for a child to be able to keep up with the group. This time the men have to provide shelter and food and sell. And they will only do that if they have an emotional attachment to both the child and the woman. But why her. Why him why are we attracted to some people but not others at 1st its all about looks in the blink of an eye we scan our potential partner and collect information about their age health mood and social status. Men have an eye for women with symmetrical faces large eyes for lips high foreheads and of course female proportions men usually find Young Healthy women attractive. In men women look for a strong chin broad shoulders narrow hips and quite often signs of social status. But in the end the chemistry has to be in sync and that has a lot to do with scent are no is not as easily fooled as our eyes as this test demonstrates. The status of the 2 year. Old now from the bite that has this student couple is taking part in an experiment everyone brings a t. Shirt they wore overnight the test subjects are now offered 5 t. Shirts worn by strangers plus that of their partner they have to evaluate which scent they find attractive people can sniff out other peoples immune systems and tend to select a mate whose immune genetics are different and complimentary to their own that way nature ensures that offspring have a robust immune system. The study confirmed the assumption that heterosexual women tend to sniff out this genetic difference more easily than men who dont seem to have a nose for it. By men is the thought just in my for a man the genetic parameters dont seem to matter thats not what he bases it on but the typical man likes the smell of his partner because thats a smell thats familiar to him. And interestingly the longer a man is with a woman the more he likes her smell the fact the. Commitment and so its the woman who gets a whiff of whether the man is a good genetic match or not unless shes on the pill. That. There is an older study from 1995 which showed that women who were on the pill assess the genetic compatibility of a man differently from women who arent on this but i spent inish to predict in our Study Confirms this. Woman who are on the pill behave similarly to men. In this way and man i think this means they dont really care about genetic similarity anymore. However scientists cant say whether hormonal contraception influences a womans choice of partner. But the 1st kiss does seem to serve as a kind of litmus test studies show that women often say that they could tell by a kiss whether their partner was suitable for a long term relationship. Women seem to be pickier than men perhaps because of the risks associated with pregnancy and child bearing during kissing the partners instinctively exchange biological messages in a flash our brain has to evaluate vast amount of information how does the other person smell and taste are their lips soft or rough the kids hard or tender happiness hormones flood the body and through his saliva the man infuses the woman with testosterone which increases her desire sex is a love booster sex hormones reduce anxiety and stress Blood Pressure and heart rate go up just like during exercise thats why sex is good for the cardiovascular system it might also strengthen the immune system by exposing it to foreign body fluids. In short sex is much more than just reproduction. Whats striking is that humans have sex much more often than they have children around 1000. 00 times more often. This of course indicates that sexuality has another purpose and cut system and dance a few feet into it gives you a much more intense and intimate knowledge of the other person in the sense of numbers and nature on the shared desire of a shared pleasure helps cement the relationship for bynum attritional starting to see it. Finding the right partner has been a bit hit and miss over the years but that might be changing. More and more singles are now meeting online rather than at parties in the pub or at work. In the 21st century dating has gone digital. 8 hot. Bianca and marc met online and have been to gether for 14 years. And. At that time bianca was working a lot and didnt have much time for socialising marc was working abroad but wanted to return to germany is right on the. I was living in hong kong and i found it hard to meet people there. So i opened an account on a german dating site. Become a climbing and both of us had just ended a long term relationships and didnt want to repeat the same mistakes. That my relationship had failed because we werent a good match about things like family children buying a house getting a job. Was that i. Watched and. Mark and bianca met each other because of this man who goes. The psychologist believes that 2 things in life should be carefully planned finding the right job and finding the right partner so he developed a vocational Aptitude Test and a Personality Test for an Online Dating site has to be. My original idea was not to identify the ideal partner but to avoid the big mistakes. In life its often much better to try and avoid mistakes than to look for perfection. Before then you move on to avoid based on that principle who developed a partnership test its a comprehensive computer questionnaire that tries to capture personality traits that play into a good and lasting relationship. You need to know who you are to know what you want thats what we call a partner profile. And its mention. It includes more than 100. 00 questions about character traits and personal preferences but also includes questions and images that seem odd at 1st for example the question of whether a broken heart affects your appetite. Isnt this life and. Food is passion white loss or gain are related to a strong emotional state somebody who doesnt lose or gain weight when theyre unhappy is not a very passionate person. According to who goes both partners must be equally passionate otherwise theyre a poor match but can something as complex as love be predicted like this. Whether 2 people hit it off is up to them were only increasing the chances of that happening. So meeting someone is digital loving is still analog. Leave. Mark and bianca exchanged messages for weeks before they met for the 1st time. We met at the Hamburg Airport i was wearing a really cool glittering gold and silver suit the younger really like that was how you walked up and kissed me right away that was. Of course weve known each other for a long time that was a bit much but ok we knew each other so well already. Our character traits at least. I figured at the personal side of things were also a match. If wed like each other cent and taste and whatnot it was clear to me that we might end up getting married and having children together. And content but bianca wasnt on the same page. Exactly i wasnt ready yet. I got ahead of things. During those 1st moments i thought this is not really what i had in mind but i went along with it because i knew that our personalities were a match that if that would pass. Today mark and bianca are happily married and have 3 children still in their case the algorithm certainly seems to have helped them find a match. Scientists are just beginning to study Online Dating and its impact on love like sexual therapist melanie but now. And human can land so just when i meet someone in a club or at a dinner party with friends i notice a lot of things about that person. I see how they act how they move their facial expressions. How do they speak how do they smell. I perceive them with all of my senses on all channels mention about maybe even before we talk to each other. And thats whats so different about Online Dating. And thats why we say that Online Dating profiles reduce 3 dimensional people to 2 dimensional displays of information. Somewhat ironically despite the rise of Online Dating the traditional model of marriage seems to be enjoying a kind of 2nd wind is marriage is still in the number of marriages has declined since the 1950 s. But since the turn of the millennium the number has remained constant the number of relationships that end has declined in recent years this means that the long term relationship as an institution as an ideal is still very important to us. But thats not true for every country in japan for example 21st century lifestyles have given rise to a new trend many japanese women fantasize about the perfect wedding but what they want is the celebration not the spouse thats the idea behind solo weddings a wedding starring only the bride and no one else. So this is the right time for me now on the writing. I dont want to have to wait to wear a Wedding Dress if i can do it now if i like and its him. Porton to me i dont necessarily have to have a husband its not like my soul wont rest in peace if i dont end up finding the right partner. And. Studies show that half of all japanese under the age of 30 have never had sex or romantic partnership in japan love has fallen out of favor. Maybe thats because a relationship can become routine this usually happens after about 2 years Emotional Turmoil turns into tranquility some couple separate but others enter a new phase of love support and security become more important than grand passion. Love might not be as exciting anymore but it becomes healthier d people in functioning relationships are sick less often and eat a more balanced diet although they dont necessarily eat less still studies show that a stable relationship helps protect against cardiovascular disease. Touch ups reduce stress and lowers the heart rate and Blood Pressure. And kissing might even help with hay fever. Once again its oxytocin that helps account for many of these Health Benefits administered to couples as a nasal spray oxytocin even helps them argue less and then via potter the beating heart of the human we asked couples to argue in the lab and oxytocin actually influenced their behavior that they behave more positively in these conflicts our latest research focuses on these positive effects. Conflicts arent the only thing that did. In the quality of a partnership but we do want to investigate whether this might be used as a kind of intervention. How can our behavior influence our oxytocin levels then perhaps influence things like wound healing or stress level. Of the stress level. In a recent study scientists investigated whether oxytocin makes wounds heal faster 1st they inflicted small burns on the forearms of both partners. Normally burns like this take a week to heal. So do they heal faster when a loving partner is at your side. And can