Are We Going to Buy Love in a Bottle?

Do you think that love potions exist only in fairytales? It is scientists who now promise us love in a bottle!

Love has a formula

Love can be explained as a series of neurochemical events in specific brain centres, claims Larry Young, a professor at University of Atlanta in Georgia, in a renowned scientific magazine, Nature.

Human emotions and behavior have evolved from animal kingdom where the hormone oxytocin, which functions as a neurotransmitter in the brain, without doubt, plays an important role in establishing the relationship between a mother and a child. Studies show that oxytocin is present in establishing strong and permanent relationships among coyotes. Well, people hardly believe that their rich emotions are based on a chemical cocktail. It’s also difficult to believe that animals could experience maternal love similar to humans, but everything seems to point this way!

Resolving marital problems with hormones

In humans, oxytocin increases trust and the ability to feel the emotions of other people. The brain contains hundreds of signalling molecules. Every molecule functions in a different area – oxytocin is one of them. Professor Young believes that knowledge about these substances will help us understand love and also manipulate it. Marital problems, problems because of unrequited love and similar troubles could therefore all be solved with the help of oxytocin.

Other academics, particularly those from humanistic fields, emphasize that evolution and psychological and sociological aspects have to be take into consideration to understand love. Young agrees that upbringing plays an important role, but in his view it affects people through neurochemical changes.

Forced into love by hormones

Oxytocin helps us recognize the emotions of other people and can truly influence one's ability to establish relationships. There are already perfumes containing this hormone on the market, but the content is too low to have the effect of an aphrodisiac. For now oxytocin cannot be manipulated, except in the case of MDMA (ecstasy) which stimulates the activity of oxytocin by activating certain receptors in the brain that intensify the emotions of love, empathy and bonding.