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All of the basic emotions such as love, hate, feer, anger, disgust, have hormonal and neurological mechanisms. If you block the hormone Oxytocin in a female monkey, it will no longer "love" its children.
So the hypothesis and theory of "god", "soul", "life after death" are not required to answer any questions about the universe. Therefore they are false. just like "two headed monster" is.
Love: an emergent property of the mammalian autonomic nervous system.
Porges SW
Psychoneuroendocrinology 1998 Nov 23:837-61
Abstract
The evolution of the autonomic nervous system provides an organizing principle to interpret the adaptive significance of mammalian affective processes including courting, sexual arousal, copulation, and the establishment of enduring social bonds. According to the Polyvagal Theory (Porges, 1995, 1996, 1997), the well-documented phylogenetic shift in the neural regulation of the autonomic nervous system passes through three stages, each with an associated behavioral strategy. The first stage is characterized by a primitive unmyelinated visceral vagus that fosters digestion and responds to threat by depressing metabolic activity. Behaviorally, the first stage is associated with immobilization behaviors. The second stage is characterized by the sympathetic nervous system that is capable of increasing metabolic output and inhibiting the visceral vagus to foster mobilization behaviors necessary for 'fight or flight'. The third stage, unique to mammals, is characterized by a myelinated vagus that can rapidly regulate cardiac output to foster engagement and disengagement with the environment. The mammalian vagus is neuroanatomically linked to the cranial nerves that regulate social engagement via facial expression and vocalization. The Polyvagal Theory provides neurobiological explanations for two dimensions of intimacy: courting and the establishment of enduring pair-bonds. Courting is dependent upon the social engagement strategies associated with the mammalian vagus. The establishment of enduring pair-bonds is dependent upon a co-opting of the visceral vagus from an immobilization system associated with fear and avoidance to an immobilization system associated with safety and trust. The theory proposes that the phylogenetic development of the mammalian vagus is paralleled by a specialized communication, via oxytocin and vasopressin, between the hypothalamus and the medullary source nuclei of the viscera vagus, which facilitates sexual arousal, copulation, and the development of enduring pair-bonds.
OBJECTIVE: Although an inability to form normal social attachments characterizes many forms of psychopathology, there has been little study of the neural basis of social bond formation. The primary purpose of this article is to describe a novel approach to the neurobiology of attachment. METHOD: The author reviews animal research on two closely related neuropeptides, oxytocin and vasopressin, implicated in the central mediation of attachment behaviors. These neuropeptides appear to be important for the initiation of pair bonds and parental behaviors as well as the infant's response to social separation. RESULTS: Both cellular and molecular studies have begun to reveal the mechanisms by which oxytocin and vasopressin neural pathways are regulated, leading to a preliminary understanding of how these hormones act within the brain to influence complex social behaviors. CONCLUSIONS: Although their function in the human brain has yet to be demonstrated, the available evidence suggests that oxytocin and vasopressin may prove to be important in the pathophysiology of clinical disorders, such as autism, characterized by an inability to form normal social attachments.
The field of neuroscience has, after a long period of looking the other way, again embraced emotion as an important research area. Much of the progress has come from studies of fear, and especially fear conditioning. This work has pinpointed the amygdala as an important component of the system involved in the acquisition, storage, and expression of fear memory and has elucidated in detail how stimuli enter, travel through, and exit the amygdala. Some progress has also been made in understanding the cellular and molecular mechanisms that underlie fear conditioning, and recent studies have also shown that the findings from experimental animals apply to the human brain. It is important to remember why this work on emotion succeeded where past efforts failed. It focused on a psychologically well-defined aspect of emotion, avoided vague and poorly defined concepts such as ''affect,'' ''hedonic tone,'' or ''emotional feelings,'' and used a simple and straightforward experimental approach. With so much research being done in this area today, it is important that the mistakes of the past not be made again. It is also time to expand from this foundation into broader aspects of mind and behavior.
Significant progress has been made in our understanding of the neural substrates of emotion and its disorders. Neuroimaging methods have been used to characterize the circuitry underlying disorders of emotion. Particular emphasis has been placed on the prefrontal cortex, anterior cingulate, parietal cortex, and the amygdala as critical components of the circuitry that may be dysfunctional in both depression and anxiety.
The purpose of this paper is to review existing behavioral and neuroendocrine perspectives on social attachment and love. Both love and social attachments function to facilitate reproduction, provide a sense of safety, and reduce anxiety or stress. Because social attachment is an essential component of love, understanding attachment formation is an important step toward identifying the neurobiological substrates of love. Studies of pair bonding in monogamous rodents, such as prairie voles, and maternal attachment in precocial ungulates offer the most accessible animal models for the study of mechanisms underlying selective social attachments and the propensity to develop social bonds. Parental behavior and sexual behavior, even in the absence of selective social behaviors, are associated with the concept of love; the analysis of reproductive behaviors, which is far more extensive than our understanding of social attachment, also suggests neuroendocrine substrates for love. A review of these literatures reveals a recurrent association between high levels of activity in the hypothalamic pituitary adrenal (HPA) axis and the subsequent expression of social behaviors and attachments. Positive social behaviors, including social bonds, may reduce HPA axis activity, while in some cases negative social interactions can have the opposite effect. Central neuropeptides, and especially oxytocin and vasopressin have been implicated both in social bonding and in the central control of the HPA axis. In prairie voles, which show clear evidence of pair bonds, oxytocin is capable of increasing positive social behaviors and both oxytocin and social interactions reduce activity in the HPA axis. Social interactions and attachment involve endocrine systems capable of decreasing HPA reactivity and modulating the autonomic nervous system, perhaps accounting for health benefits that are attributed to loving relationships.