Love is all chemistry

This experiment, along with many others, demonstrates that love is a chemical process. The initial giddiness and racing heart attributed to falling in love is the body releasing dopamine and norepinephrine.^[2] Later, when the relationship moves from the initial lust and attraction stage, our body releases "bonding hormones". The prairie vole is one of the most monogamous mammals in the animal kingdom. They form lifelong bonds almost as soon as they mate and will remain with that partner for the rest of their lives. The prairie vole is so monogamous that when one mate dies, instead of finding another mate, the surviving vole will remain alone until they also die.^[3] When scientist dissected prairie vole brains, they found high levels of the hormone oxytocin. Oxytocin and vasopressin allow us to form deep bonds with our partner.^[4] When researchers gave prairie voles a drug which blocked their release of oxytocin, they stopped forming monogamous bonds. They became polygamous. These hormones are also present in humans and explain how we bond with one partner. Love is a chemical procedure. Even the development of relationships can be reduced to neurochemistry. When we talk about love, we are just talking about chemical reactions in the brain in widely recognised language.

[P1] The feelings associated with being in love are caused by neurochemical reactions. [P2] Therefore, what we call "love" is simply a term for a specific set of chemical reactions taking place in the brain.