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We Loved
Up
The Science Of Love (The Chemistry of Romance)
Chemistry of Love
Love Addiction and Monogamouse
Monogamous
Monogamouse Addicted to Love
Relax, Here's a Love Drug We Can All Use
WEEK OF LOVE / THE PHYSIOLOGY OF Love
WEEK OF LOVE / THE PHYSIOLOGY OF Love
Scientists Turn Up the Lights On Love
AUTISM & OXYTOCIN
MATING GAME
Paradox Of Our Times
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Scientists Turn Up the Lights On Secrets of
Love
JANE FEINMANN
Chicago Sun-Times
Sunday, January 17, 1999
TEXT:
Dim the lights, light the fire, play a little soft music and add a trickling
fountain - they're more than just the restaurateur's cliche of romantic
ambience. These tricks of the trade really might be stimulating that loving
feeling since, according to new research, all of them are guaranteed to flood
our bodies with a little-known chemical called oxytocin, or the "hormone of
love."
Twenty years ago, oxytocin was considered a female hormone useful only as a
mechanical trigger for labor contractions. Since then, researchers have found
that the hormone, which is produced in
the hypothalamus is involved in the feelings of caring and warmth sparked by all
sorts of interactions.
Oxytocin's power was first recognized in 1979 when virgin male rats whose brains
were injected with the hormone began to display maternal behavior. Several
hundred research studies have shed light
on the hormone's role in the early stages of sexual passion and in the process
of bonding beyond birth.
Some people are unable to release oxytocin as easily as others. Doctors in
New York are investigating a theory that abnormal social development in
conditions such as autism might occur when the capacity to release this hormone
doesn't work properly. Being overly rational or logical - in other words
letting the "educated" part of the brain, the neo-cortex, dominate the more
primitive part of the brain where oxytocin flourishes - is another major
inhibition.
That could mean that men who take pleasure in family, friends, food and
relaxation are less likely to be in need of Viagra, according to obstetrician
Michel Odent, whose new book, The Scientification of Love, is due to be
published this year. Men who develop an approach to life that allows the less
rational parts of the brain - where the hormone thrives - frequently to come to
the fore, might enjoy better sex lives, he said.
Odent said he hopes the current drive to bring together and interpret the
disparate research on oxytocin might begin to show how humans can, in the words
of philosopher Teilhard de Chardin, "harness the energy of love."
Scripps Howard News Service
(Copyright 1999)
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Meaning of Love
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