la luz

so oddly enough i was inspired to draw this during my neurobio class lol. we were learning about the different planes of the brain and saw a mid sagittal view of the brain via fMRI. i thought it looked so cool that i wanted to recreate it! i figured the best way to capture this was to draw the brain while under the influence of an emotion. naturally as a dnp artist love came to mind lmaooo.

i’m currently getting a degree in bio and psych and i want to eventually get my phd in neuroscience so i kinda dove in deep with the research for this. i knew i wanted to do something involving emotions but finding papers that supported my idea was ridiculously hard. seriously. i’ve been working in a research lab for a year now but nothing could have prepared me for the lit search i was about to go on.

the problem is that a lot of modern science involving the brain during love is either a) fucking pseudoscience or b) in the preliminary stages. luckily i was able to find this TED talk which lead me to read her paper and snowball to other papers and start formulating the idea.

i wanted this to be as scientifically accurate as possible so i read 4 peer reviewed papers to ensure i was choosing the right sections. i was able to verify the two (actually four) sections i highlighted through two papers which honestly was enough for me.

SO ABOUT THE SCIENCE.

okie so what you need to know is that this is a mid sagittal view of the brain via fMRI. so an fMRI basically takes sections of your brain and using the oxygen levels in blood can show regions of the brain that have increased blood flow (indicated by the colors). tbh the colors mean nothing. one of the images from a paper i read had the coloring on the left but i wanted to distinguish between the two so i made them different. the only important thing is that the brighter the color, the more activated the region.

the two sections showing activation are the posterior cingulate cortex (PC) and the anterior cingulate cortex (AC). more specifically, the two areas that are involved are the ventral tegmental area (VTA) and the caudate nucleus. they’re really small sections tho which is why i chose to highlight the areas they’re found in, the PC and AC.  

the VTA and the caudate nucleus are areas involved in pleasure, arousal, attention and seeking rewards BUT they are also associated with addictive behaviors. a lot of the pathways that have been identified in drug addiction involve the aforementioned areas WHICH MEANS according to the study, love can be (and as the author argues, should be) classified as an addictive behavior.

I COULD GO ON but honestly it would stop relating to my drawing. if you’re interested, i would HIGHLY recommend reading the papers i’m linking below. the first two are pretty easy reads and should be good for someone with a basic understanding of science. the other two are a little more dense and get a bit technical at points so read at your discretion. the TED talk is super accessible so def watch that at least. OK THANKS FOR LISTENING BYE.

References 

Easy Article 1, Easy Article 2, Hard Article 1, Hard Article 2 (can’t find a public link, title is Reward, Motivation, and Emotion Systems Associated With Early-Stage Intense Romantic Love written by Arthur Aron)

Aron, A. (2005). Reward, Motivation, and Emotion Systems Associated With Early-Stage Intense Romantic Love. Journal of Neurophysiology,94(1), 327-337. doi:10.1152/jn.00838.2004

Acevedo, B. P., Aron, A., Fisher, H. E., & Brown, L. L. (2011). Neural correlates of long-term intense romantic love. Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, 7(2), 145-159. doi:10.1093/scan/nsq092

Bartels, A., & Zeki, S. (2004). The neural correlates of maternal and romantic love. NeuroImage, 21(3), 1155-1166. doi:10.1016/j.neuroimage.2003.11.003

Fisher, H. E., Xu, X., Aron, A., & Brown, L. L. (2016). Intense, Passionate, Romantic Love: A Natural Addiction? How the Fields That Investigate Romance and Substance Abuse Can Inform Each Other. Frontiers in Psychology, 7. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2016.00687