What Part Of The Brain Controls Lust

14 Sep The Brain in Lust and Love

The Evolution of Empathy, Cooperation, and Caring – And Graceful Means to Ride the Roller-Coaster of Romance

Introduction

The marvelous homo capabilities for understanding each other, and feeling understood, developed in the brain over millions of years.

Learning about these tin assistance you understand and work better with your own empathic capabilities.

And they indicate to a hard-wired tendency in the homo character – a kind of Dark Side of the Force – that must be managed, even transcended, for the full flowering of virtue, compassion, empathy, kindness, and beloved.

Building Blocks of Empathy

Organisms develop attributes through development because those characteristics part to increase . . . grandchildren.

Evolution builds complex capabilities out of simpler ones.

These are the five major edifice blocks of empathy that increased the grandchildren – ultimately, united states of america – of our ancient, great- bully great primate, mammal, and reptile antecedent-parents:

Understanding the intentions of other animals, both of one'south ain species, and others. For example, consider the bones distinction between: Do you want to mate with me? Or swallow me? (Or both . . . Only hopefully, we've moved beyond the black widow spider level . . . ) Even quite archaic animals work to infer the true plans of other animals from the behavior of those other animals.
Simulation systems – Many of the same neural circuits activate both when we have an action and when run across others taking the same action. Since the brains of normal humans are 99.ix% identical to each other in their core functionalities – since they are derived from the same basic template in human Dna – this means that the general experience of an activeness within me – let's say, of reaching for a cup – is close to, or shares features with, the experience of that action within you. In terms of motor activities, when I meet you reaching for a cup, neural circuits (called "mirror neurons") within me create a simulation – a kind of repeat – of the bodily felt experience within you of reaching for that cup. Similarly, many of the same neural circuits activate when we experience primary emotions and when we see others experiencing the same emotion. For example, the insula activates both when you are having a gut feeling – such equally fear of pain, disgust, or nausea – and when you see someone having a similar gut feeling (particularly someone yous care about). Literally, you really do experience my pain. And more broadly, many of the same neural circuits activate when we have more subtle emotions and when nosotros meet others having that aforementioned emotion. As a result, impairments in the product of emotions – such as with strokes in certain parts of the brain – pb to impairments in the recognition of those emotions.These activations are hard-wired and occur automatically, often outside of awareness.
In other words, there is a kind of natural, unbidden resonance in which our brains are continually re-creating within ourselves traces of the experience of other people.
Empathy facilitates cooperation and altruism. We come up from a long line of social animals, and within groups where others know what you're up to – where your reputation can exist known – there are reproductive advantages in being seen as a cooperative, giving private. Farther, groups characterized past a high level of cooperation and altruism among their members had advantages compared to other groups in which cooperation and altruism was low. In other words, all things being equal, groups with strong teamwork will beat groups with weak teamwork. Fifty-fifty sometimes, groups with individually weaker members – merely who unselfishly work together for the greater proficient – will frequently crush groups with individually stronger members but less teamwork . . . as 1 can often see in professional sports, especially those that really rely on teamwork, such as basketball. And the accumulating advantages of that difference – the degree of teamwork – actually mount up in harsh environmental weather. Which are precisely the conditions in which our primate and mammalian ancestors evolved (and the NBA playoffs!).
Language offers a rich medium of communication that helps united states describe inner states more fully and more clearly. Humans, unlike other animals, can put their feelings into words. Consider the nuances bachelor in some of the words we use for flavors of fearfulness: unease, worry, apprehensiveness, anxiety, dread, panic, terror.
Last, with language came increasing abilities at conceptualization, or abstruse idea. This aided empathy in 2 primal means:
- It enabled us to stand outside our own point of view in club to consider the betoken of view of the other person. We need a basic mental flexibility to be empathic. Consider people who tend toward a sure mental rigidity – hmm, probably a few of us here in this room! – and how they tend to have express empathy. (Which is another good reason to develop the power to footstep back and observe and reflect upon our own mental processes – which is, in Buddhist practice, chosen the Third Foundation of Mindfulness.)
- It enabled united states to make educated guesses – to brand inferences – about what's going on within the other person. More fundamental sensate and emotional mirroring systems give us lots of data, and then we step back and reason most information technology, creating hypotheses, and checking them out to produce more information, and then on. Empathy has an intelligence to information technology. It is much more than than simple mirroring of or resonance with the other person. Empathy is inquiry. Which is an aspect of the investigation gene, which is one of the 7 factors of enlightenment in Buddhist thinking. Interestingly, these more conceptual aspects of empathy come fully on line relatively late in man development – in adolescence or even early machismo – much as they have come on tardily only recently in primate evolution

In sum, 2.5 meg years ago, our groovy-great-grandparents were making stone tools in Africa. And handing down that engineering to generation later on generation – sometimes unchanged for a 1000000 years. Pretty incredible!

But those folks had brains most one-half the size of our own. The other half that got added since so, mainly handles language and conceptualization, and related abilities with planning, emotion, and social behavior.

That's the divergence – less than three cups worth – that has made all the difference in the world.

Development of Bonding and Love

Then, building on these omnidirectional capacities for cooperation, empathy, and altruism, we have the evolution of pair bonding, culminating in the complexities of human being beloved.

What was the payoff in the "reproductive advantages" of pair bonding – betwixt parents and their young, and betwixt mates – that drive development?

Humans evolved bonding in large role because childhood is and so long – and childhood is so long in order to develop all the faculties of the higher brain functions.

So we needed ways to bail mothers with children for years and years, and ways to bail fathers with children and their mothers for years and years, and means to bail family groups together for years and years in order to sustain "the village it takes to raise a child."

Many factors promote bonding, including virtue and empathy – the capacities for which take certainly evolved over time.

Biochemical factors have evolved as well, and let'southward consider 2 of them now: the chemicals dopamine and oxytocin. Both are neurotransmitters in the brain, and oxytocin also functions as a hormone when it acts outside the nervous system.

(By the way, dopamine and oxytocin, like many other biochemical factors, are present in other mammals, besides, but as with most things homo, their effects are much more than nuanced and elaborated.)

Dopamine

It'due south an error to reduce beloved to chemicals, since so many other factors are at work in the brain and mind equally well, then allow's concord this material in perspective.

BraininLustandLove-2

That said, it appears that when people are in love, amid other neurological activity, two parts of their encephalon really get activated.

Both of these areas are shown in the MRI slide but higher up. Information technology's a sideways slice of the encephalon, looking down. The orange hulk in the centre is actually two little – but very important – parts of the brain that are both very active. They are called the tegmentum and the caudate nucleus.

What's happening in the picture – taken of a college educatee in love while looking at a moving picture of his or her beloved – is that portions of the tegmentum are flooding the caudate with lots of dopamine.

The caudate actually "likes" dopamine, and then it sends signals back to the tegmentum to continue the supplies coming.

Dopamine is very involved with pleasance and motivation. And too addiction; cocaine triggers lots of dopamine.

In upshot, being in love rewards the pleasure centers in your encephalon, which so crave whatever it was that was so rewarding – in other words, your dearest.

And existence rejected in love activates a part of the brain chosen the insula, which is the same region that lights up when we are in physical pain (as noted above).

So we are doubly motivated to hold fast to the object of our love: experience the pleasance, and avoid the hurting.

Interestingly, when people are in lust, rather than in love, different systems of the encephalon get activated, notably the hypothalamus and the amygdala.

The hypothalamus regulates drives similar hunger and thirst; interestingly, the word in Pali that is translated in English as the "desire" or "attachment" or "clinging" that is the root of suffering has the fundamental meaning of "thirst," so it's pretty likely that the hypothalamus is involved in much of the clinging that leads to suffering.

The amygdala handles emotional reactivity, and both it and the hypothalamus are involved in arousal of the organism, readiness for action (and thus the amygdala and hypothalamus are central switchboards for the fight or flight responses to stress).

This speaks to the subjective experience of being in love, which generally feels softer, more than "Aaaaahh, how sweet!" rather than the "Rawwrh, gotta have it!" intensity of lust.

That said, dopamine – increased in love – triggers testosterone production, which is a major factor in the sex bulldoze of both men and women.

So, in brusque, nosotros fall in love, and among other neural circuits and psychological complexities, the same reward chemicals involved in drug addiction lead u.s.a. to crave our beloved and desire sex with him or her. Sorry to be mechanistic here, but you get the idea.

The intended result, in the evolutionary playbook, is, of course, babies. And then what?!

Oxytocin

Oxytocin promotes bonding between mothers and children, and between mates, so they piece of work together to keep those kids alive.

(By the way, we'd really similar to credit Linda Graham, our friend and a great therapist and a writer for providing much of the information here most oxytocin. Cheers!)

For instance, in women, oxytocin triggers the let-down reflex in nursing, and is involved in that beatific, oceanic feeling of peace and comfort and beloved experienced by many women while breastfeeding. (Of course, breastfeeding is frequently not so blissful!)

It also seems to be part of the female response to stress (more than in men – since women have much more than oxytocin than men practice), particularly encouraging what Shelley Taylor at UCLA called "tend-and-befriend" behaviors in women when they are stressed.

(Of course, men, also, will oft reach out to others and be friendly during tough times, whether it'south crunch quarter at the office, or somewhere in a dusty war – another example of how there are many pathways in the brain to important functional results.)

The experiential qualities of oxytocin are pleasurable feelings of relaxation and rightness, so it is an internal reward for all bonding behaviors – not just with mates.

Oxytocin encourages sociability; for case, when oxytocin capabilities are knocked out in laboratory mice, their relationships with other mice are very disturbed.

And oxytocin dampens the stress response of the sympathetic nervous organisation and the hypothalamus-pituitary-adrenal axis – as well having functional benefits, this is another pathway for rewarding, and thus encouraging, bonding behaviors.

What triggers this warm and fuzzy and permit'due south-get-together-now chemic?

Oxytocin is released in both women and men:

When nipples are stimulated (such as through nursing)
During orgasm, promoting the afterglow of warm affection (and a tendency, sometimes annoying in a partner, to fall asleep!)
During extended, concrete, specially "peel-to-skin" contact (e.thou., cuddling children, long hugs with friends, teens forming packs on the couch, lovers caressing after sexual activity)
When moving together harmoniously, like dancing
When at that place are warm feelings of rapport or love; a strong sense of metta (lovingkindness) probably entails releases of oxytocin, though we have not seen a study on that specific subject (a nifty Ph.D. dissertation for someone).
Probably during devotional experiences, such equally in prayer, or while with certain kinds of spiritual teachers

Oxytocin can as well exist released simply by imagining – the more than vividly, the ameliorate – the activities just mentioned, particularly when combined with warm feelings.

Of class, to reiterate, oxytocin is just i of many factors at piece of work in our relationships. For example, philosophical values or ethics of universal pity, such equally in the major religions of the world, tin can as well influence a person's behavior profoundly, whether or not any oxytocin is released.

The Dark Side of Romantic Bonding

For all their wonderful aspects, the neuropsychological mechanisms of bonding have their shadow sides, too. Let's consider 2 of those.

The rewards of mating – so constructive in getting people to make babies, and then stay joined to each other long enough to raise those children to semi-independent functionality – comprise the seeds of two mutual issues:

Those rewards – including sweet surges of dopamine and oxytocin – naturally incline the listen to seek whatever volition trigger those rewards . . . even if that's not and so good for united states, or others. So we keep chasing the wrong person, looking for honey in all the wrong places.
Those pleasures also make u.s. suffer when nosotros lose them, if the other person distances or abandons the states. Recall how rejection or abandonment activates some of the regions also triggered by physical pain. Rejection and abandonment hurt.

At that place are many toolboxes for dealing with these issues. Allow'southward consider the methods from Buddhism, for example.

The Buddha's general analysis of the 2 bug just in a higher place – reduced to their essence, which is that unhealthy attachment leads to emotional hurting – tin exist seen in what he called the Chain of Dependent Origination: contact with a stimulus [the dearest person] has a feeling tone [pleasant] which leads to peckish, which leads to clinging, which leads to suffering.

To bargain with this chain of i matter leading to another, Buddhism has many tools, and we will highlight 2 hither – insight and equanimity – applied to romantic love and heartbreak.

Equally we explore insight and equanimity, you might like to keep applying these ideas to a specific love relationship – current or in the by – which will make them more real for you.

Insight

Insight, or Wise View, helps united states of america call up that letting ourselves crave a pleasure is the slippery slope to suffering . . . and if we're clinging to that pleasure, we've fallen over the edge and it'due south unremarkably only a matter of time before we striking the ground.

It too helps us see the nature of the person, or the experiences, nosotros crave: insight reminds united states of america that they are all impermanent. They are spring to alter. If we are not prepared for the person to change, or for the experiences with them to change, or for the human relationship to change, or for ourselves to change within the human relationship . . . then we will suffer, and usually cause suffering every bit well.

Insight too helps u.s.a. move to the wisdom place of disenchantment. Nosotros start to recognize that the pleasures of existence with another person are dainty – just rarely incredible. Nothing tin can be that nifty that long!

The stories told in novels and movies nigh the Fairy Prince or Princess and living happily forever subsequently are just spells cast over the mind.

Love and long-term relationships and families are great, just it's wise to keep their rewards in perspective. If we are clear-eyed virtually what is actually possible over the long haul in dearest, we volition tend to feel more relaxed in the relationship, more accepting of inevitable ups and downs, and be easier to live with . . . and to keep loving!

Equanimity

Self-possession is more profound than calm.

When nosotros are calm, we are not upset. When we are in a state of self-possession, even if our heed has gotten reactivated, we are not upset virtually the disturbance of listen.

In the Buddhist understanding of equanimity, to be a little technical, we are not reacting to the moment to moment feeling tone of feel, whether it is pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral.

Information technology is difficult to control the feeling tone in the moment – and in a manner, wisdom realizes that this world, sometimes called samsara, is not perfectible, and volition always have lots of neutral and pleasant experiences – so the best bet is to develop a wise response to that feeling tone . . . which is equanimity.

Applying this approach to the pleasures of mating, equanimity means to savour what is pleasant without chasing after information technology. Letting physical pleasures of mating flow through . . . letting the emotional rewards of closeness flow through . . . enjoying them, but non grasping them.

Similarly, equanimity with the unpleasant means beingness present with information technology, but non adding insult to injury – what the Buddha called the second dart – past getting frightened, or agitated, or losing touch with virtue and empathy and lashing out. Or feeling affronted – suffering what in psychology lingo is a "egotistic wound," clinging to self – in how could you treat me this way?!

And when the feeling tone is neutral – equally it really is so much of the time, both in life in general and in our relationships – equanimity stays relaxed with the neutral and doesn't need it to jump upwardly and get great again. For case, lots of fourth dimension nosotros become frightened that nothing is happening in the relationship, and stir things upward needlessly, to get some stimulation going.

The outcome of self-possession with the neutral is patience and ease of mind for yourself, and for others, it makes you a person who is a lot easier to be with.

Daily life in a bonded human relationship, or daily life without a bonded relationship simply wanting one, is full of opportunities to practice with insight and equanimity. Since "neurons that burn together, wire together," that regular practice will cultivate greater insight and self-possession in yous.

Additionally, no surprise, meditation is a straight path to insight and self-possession, and we encourage you to commit to meditating every day, at least one minute or more. Meditation is to mental wellness what aerobic exercise is to physical wellness.

In sum, to refer to maybe the greatest dharma story of all fourth dimension – Goldilocks and the Three Bears! – romantic honey goes all-time when we're in the "merely-right" spot of not too cold and not likewise hot: brave enough to requite our hearts, and wise enough to not become over-clinging nigh whatever results.

The practices of virtue, empathy, insight, and self-possession can really help united states of america find and stay in that just-right identify.