The Brain in Love: 12 Lessons to Enhance Your Love Life (8 page)

Increased protein diet

For memory problems (options to consider)

• Physical and mental exercise
  

• Omega-3 fatty acids, alpha lipoic acid, Vitamin E and Vitamin C as antioxidants, phosphatidal serine, ginkgo biloba
  

TL supplements, such GABA or valerian to calm TLs if needed

TL medications (if appropriate), antiseizure medications for mood instability and temper problems, such as Depakote, Neurontin, Gabatril, and Lamictal; memory-enhancing
medications for more serious memory problems, such as Namenda, Aricept, Exelon, or Reminyl

Lesson #2: No forethought equals no foreplay. Understand how the brain works and influences our behavior—and our intimate relation-ships—for a healthy and romantic sex life
.

THE CHEMISTRY OF LOVE

Ingredients of Attraction, Infatuation, Commitment, and Detachment

“Don’t copulate with people you don’t want to fall in love with, because indeed you may do just that.”

—Anthropologist HELEN FISHER

Y
ou’re sitting behind the wheel of your van at a long traffic light. The only thing slower than the traffic is your perception of time’s passage.

Then you notice her.

She appears at the curb, waiting to cross. No, she’s not the love of your life. She’s more like the heat of the moment. It’s fortunate that your wife isn’t there; you’d be in deep trouble as you take in the stranger’s hips and breasts, and the way her waist scoops in to accentuate both. Time is enhanced; there’s a pleasing buzz connecting your temples.

Your reaction is automatic, reflexive, and quite possibly the most powerful one you’ll have this day. It temporarily blots out your long-range commitments—your ten-year marriage, your sweet child in second grade, your responsibility to keep eyes forward at traffic lights. You’ve surrendered control; you’re captivated by the pleasure in the vision.

“You dog!” you may whisper under your breath, embarrassed by what you’re envisioning as you sit there in your family van. But it might be more correct to say, “You dopamine fiend!”

When you spot the object of your desire, the neurotransmitter dopamine lights up areas deep within the brain, triggering feelings of pleasure, motivation, and reward. (Cocaine acts the same way.) You feel a rush, and your heartbeat quickens. Attraction, too, is a powerful drug. The brain stem also gets into the act, releasing phenylethylamine (PEA), which speeds up the flow of information between nerve cells. It’s no wonder your neck and eyeballs track her every movement.

But she’s not gawking back at you, and it’s not just because you’re driving a family bus with a paint scrape on the fender. Her brain acts very differently from yours. You’re keyed in to beauty, shape, fantasy, and obsession; on some biological level that she may be unaware of, she’s looking for a mate who will sire healthy children and protect and provide for her and them. And yes, maybe even buy them a family van. Her goals are programmed for the long range; yours are often shockingly short term.

The whole encounter can leave you quivering with pleasure, hoping for more.

It can also ruin your life.

Between the “walk” and “don’t walk” signals of delight and disaster, your brain is sorting information, making choices, spurring actions. Pay attention—your whole life is riding on the choices you make.

Chemical Symphony

If you have ever listened to a symphony or any other beautiful musical production, you realize how each musician plays an essential part in the overall artistic performance. If any musician plays out of sync with the others, the music can be ruined. A fulfilling sexual relationship is very similar to a well-conducted symphony with respect to the synergy of many hormones and chemicals that
are released at different phases of the love relationship. If a hormone or brain chemical is out of balance compared to the others (over- or underproduced), the entire sexual experience can be ruined.

After looking at the five different brain systems that relate to human behavior discussed in Lesson Two, it is time to explore the major chemicals involved with the primary phases of love: attraction, infatuation, commitment, and detachment.

• Attraction, the craving for sexual gratification, is primarily driven by the male and female hormones, testosterone and estrogen, the chemical nitric oxide, and potentially a group of chemicals called pheromones.
  

• Infatuation, intense, passionate love—characterized by extreme happiness when things are going well, bad feelings when they’re not; focused attention; obsessive thinking; and craving for the new love—is controlled by a cocktail of neurotransmitters including epinephrine, norepinephrine, dopamine, serotonin, and phenylethylamine (PEA).
  

• Commitment, the sense of connectedness, sustained joy, stability, and peace that one feels with a potential long-term partner, is created by the hormones oxytocin and vasopressin.
  

• Detachment, losing a love through breakups or death, often leads to deficiencies in serotonin and endorphins.
  

This chapter will go through each phase and also give you tips on managing these phases, especially detachment, so they don’t throw you out of balance.

Attraction Chemicals—“You Turn Me On”
(Testosterone, Estrogen, Nitric Oxide, and Pheromones)            

When I saw her for the first time, it was hard to catch my breath. She was stunning. I couldn’t possibly think about anything else. I didn’t want to stare, but couldn’t help myself. “Stop it,” I screamed
inside my head. “Look away. No, I just have to look. Be polite, she’ll think you are a pervert.” My thoughts started to run wild. “Her curly brown hair, her sparkling green eyes, her neck, her slender body, amazing … Stop it, get a grip, you don’t even know her.” This little intense dialogue is what could be the beginning of the great love in your life, a horror story of obsession, or momentary fireworks.

What happens in the brain when we are sexually attracted to someone new? Our brain is programmed for attraction. It is one of the most powerfully rewarding reactions in this history of our species. The brain is a chemical factory looking for love. Attraction activates the erector sets that live in all of us.

Fifty percent of the brain is dedicated to vision, so how people look, how they move, how they smile, and how their eyes appear are critical to the process of attraction. When a man or woman sees an attractive person, the visual areas of the brain spark with activity, and he or she occupies a large portion of the brain. Attraction works very much like a powerful drug.

Using sophisticated imaging equipment, researchers from Emory University in Atlanta found that the amygdala, an area of the brain that controls emotions and motivation, is much more activated in men than women when viewing sexual material for thirty minutes, even though both sexes reported similar levels of interest in the images. This may be one of the reasons men are much more interested in pornography than women. It is also no mistake that women spend more time caring for their physical appearance. How they look has much more impact on a man’s brain than the other way around.

Men tend to be attracted to symmetrical, fertile, healthy, younger-looking women. A man’s genetic brain is looking at a woman and deciding whether or not he wants his children to carry her genes. Unconsciously we look for signs of health, such as clear skin and bright eyes. A number of scientists believe that body symmetry also plays a critical role in our view of beauty. The theory behind this notion is that asymmetrical features give clues to
underlying health problems, thus yielding more troubled offspring. In a study at the University of New Mexico, college males found symmetrical female faces more attractive than asymmetrical faces. In addition, women who were blessed with symmetry had a history of more sexual partners and tended to lose their virginity at an earlier age.

There is now scientific proof for something people have long suspected—beautiful women make men stupid. Canadian researchers showed men pictures of conventionally pretty or not-so-pretty women. The men rolled dice—and were told they could either receive $15 the following day or $75 after waiting a few days. The men who saw the pictures of the beautiful women were more likely to take the $15—proving, researchers say, that men stop thinking about long-term consequences once love chemicals kick in. By the way, the same test was done on women—and attractiveness had no effect on their thinking processes. It seems as though beautiful women cause a man’s limbic system to fire up (emotional charge) while his prefrontal cortex (PFC) heads south, leaving the judgment area of the brain vacant. Las Vegas knows this principle very well. Casinos have beautiful waitresses dressed in low-cut, short dresses serving free alcohol—both lower PFC activity. No wonder the house has the edge.

A woman’s brain is much less interested in how a man looks than in how he thinks and acts. Women often look to a man’s ability to care for her and her subsequent offspring. The trappings of a successful man, in whatever society, are more important than just his physical appearance. As always, beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

The feelings of attraction, desire, arousal, and orgasm are fueled by a complicated interplay of chemicals, hormones, and other substances that cause the familiar and intriguing sensation of being “turned on.” Testosterone and estrogen were first identified in the 1920s as playing a role in sexual attraction. Since that time, there has been quite an evolution in the understanding of the chemistry involved with feelings of lust, from the controversial work of Alfred
Kinsey in the 1940s, to the first published studies on human sexuality and the stages of sexual response in the 60s, to the present, when substances like Viagra (a medication that increases blood flow to the genital areas to aid with arousal) and AndroGel (a testosterone gel applied to the skin for those with low levels of testosterone) are readily used and heavily marketed.

A hormone is a chemical produced by one organ (endocrine gland) that has a specific effect on the activities of other organs in the body. The major sex hormones can be classified as androgens or estrogens. Both classes of hormones are present in males and females alike, but in vastly different amounts. Most men produce 6 to 8 mg of testosterone (an androgen) per day, compared to most women who produce 0.5 mg daily. Estrogens are also present in both sexes, but in larger amounts for women.

Androgens/Testosterone

Androgens, of which testosterone is the primary one, are sex hormones produced primarily by a male’s testicles, but they are also produced in small amounts by the female’s ovaries and the adrenal glands. Androgens help trigger the development of the testicles and penis in the male fetus. They jump-start the process of puberty and influence the male secondary sex characteristics, the development of facial, body, and pubic hair; deepening of the voice; and muscle development. After puberty, testosterone plays a role in the sex drive. Deficiencies of testosterone may cause a drop in sexual desire, and excessive testosterone may heighten sexual interest in both sexes. In men, too little testosterone may cause difficulty obtaining or maintaining erections. As we age, testosterone levels begin to decrease; as many as five million men suffer from abnormally low testosterone levels (a condition known as hypogonadism).

Unfortunately, most men never seek treatment either because they just think it is a normal part of aging or they are embarrassed to admit that they have a problem. Very often it is the female
partner or wife who encourages her husband or boyfriend to seek help. This was the case with William, a fifty-six-year-old male who came to my office on the advice of his wife who had noticed a decrease in his sexual desire and approaches when he was typically a highly sexual partner. He noted that he still liked to cuddle with his wife and loved her dearly, but was rarely having erections upon awakening (a normal event in healthy males) and was not having as many spontaneous erections when feeling aroused. He also described a decreased interest in sex and felt less motivation and interest in other parts of his life as well. Both his blood and saliva tests revealed very low levels of testosterone; prescribing AndroGel (a testosterone gel applied to the shoulders once daily) restored his levels to normal, and his sexual interest and erectile function returned.