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archershipsA transcript of an interesting BBC Q&A by Dr. Helen Fisher
http://www.bbc.co.uk/health/body_chemistry/livechat_transcript.shtml
Live Chat Transcript
with Dr Helen Fisher
(15 February 2000)
BBC Host: Thanks for logging on for Body Chemistry's live chat with Dr Helen Fisher. We hope you enjoyed the Body Chemistry series. Tonight, the subject of love. Here is the first question...
Charlie Baker: If I'm questioning whether or not I'm in love am I in love?
Dr. Helen Fisher: Love means different things to different people. But let me list some basic characteristics of romantic love. First, your partner takes on special meaning. They seem to become the centre of your universe. Second, you think about them obsessively, often continually. Third, you focus on tiny little things they said or did and replay these memories. Fourth, you feel real elation when things are going well between you and real despair when you're not getting along.
Rebecca Evans: How did researchers arrive at the figure of 30 months as the normal length of time the feeling of love lasts in a relationship?
Dr. Helen Fisher: Scientists do not believe that love lasts only three months. In the only study of romantic love so far, those individuals who were in love maintained that obsessive thinking and elation for about eighteen months.It can last much longer if there's a real barrier to the relationship - for example, if one of the partners is married to somebody else.
Andy: Can someone fall in love more than once? If so will it ever be as powerful as the first time?
Dr. Helen Fisher: Yes, I think the brain evolved to fall in love over and over again. I know a seventy-eight-year-old who just fell head over heels in love. Romantic love is a brain circuit - it can be triggered at any age.
Dawn McGowan: What about gay people? Do the rules differ for us? Do gay women, for instance, have higher levels of testosterone?
Dr. Helen Fisher: Very little is known about hormonal levels in gay women. I have a student who is studying testosterone levels in gay women right now. In America, there seem to be two kinds of gay women - what we call butch and femme. Butch women do tend to show indications of higher levels of testosterone. But this doesn't have to do with romantic love. Testosterone is associated with a different emotion - lust, or the sex drive.
John Wilson: If sexual arousal is defined in terms of a chemical reaction between two people, why are people aroused by pornography? Doesn't this imply that there is a 'secondary' process going on?
Dr. Helen Fisher: In the beginning of this chat I divided love into three varieties: lust, romantic love and attachment. I think lust evolved to get us out looking for anybody. It can be triggered by a lot of different stimuli. Men are particularly turned on by pornography - a visual image.
Michele Lockwood-Edwards: When someone falls in love are the chemical reactions so strong that they forget about any previous love partners
Dr. Helen Fisher: Wonderful question. I think that depends. If you were really hurt by somebody in the past you won't forget that experience, nor will you forget partners that you truly loved. But the chemistry of infatuation is so strong that these memories will seem rather unimportant to you as you focus on the new one.
Kerry Acheson: As a Final Year Undergraduate taking Pharmacology, I am interested to know how far we are away from finding the answers relating to 5-HT and Dopamine etc in the process of falling in love.
Dr. Helen Fisher: Sophisticated question. New work by scientists in Italy show that obsessive romantic love is associated with low levels of serotonin, and scientists in America have discovered that high levels of dopamine are associated with partner preference in prairie voles - little field mice. I myself have just begun to put infatuated people into a functional MRI machine. Maybe next year I can tell you more.
Jess Mookherjee: The programme tonight focused on brain chemistry. But what about the behavioural and ecological strategies that drove the brain chemistry to evolve? Could any answers be found from ecomonic game theory - regarding love and co- operation?
Dr. Helen Fisher: I think that all of the mammals have a basic brain chemistry for romantic attraction. I think this emotion circuit evolved in the brain so that animals could choose between potential partners, conserve their mating energy and focus their attention on the best available partner. I think ecological circumstances vary dramatically. Attraction in some creatures lasts only seconds. In humans, it can last months or years, due to many evolutionary factors.
Tiggy Tiger: How can people fall in love over the Internet without any chemicals passing between them?
Dr. Helen Fisher: Over the Internet you can communicate quite easily and in a very relaxed fashion. It's an intimate way to talk to somebody. It's probably quite easy to become attracted to somebody just through love letters. An important moment comes, however, when you actually see them. Many love affairs end when you actually see the person!
Jonathan Bishop: My horoscope says I will meet someone this week. Couldn't this just cause a placebo effect?
Dr. Helen Fisher: I hope your horoscope is true. Timing is important. If you're looking for love, you'll probably do more of the right things to find it. Good luck to you.
Andy: If a pill cannot be made to make people fall in love, can a pill be made to quench your desires?
Dr. Helen Fisher: I think pills can be made to reduce levels of dopamine so that you feel less elation. And we already have pills that help reduce obsessive thinking. But you also have to do some things yourself - most important, stay away from the person so the brain chemistry can decrease naturally.
Jon Anon: I am a 14 year old guy and recently I have been infatuated, then I got kind of obsessed with a girl I know at school. I really want to know how to stop this because it's disrupting my life, and the girl isn't a particularly nice person. To end my feelings towards her do I have to intravenously take Seratonin, or will this end soon?
Dr. Helen Fisher: Taking serotonin can help - but more important, stay away from her! Don't call her or write to her and go to the places where she goes; avoid her friends and anything that reminds you of her. Eventually your feelings will recede.
Adele Lievesley: Is it down to genetics that we fall for a particular type of person? I also read that people we fall for are usually a bit like ourselves?
Dr. Helen Fisher: There's many reasons for falling in love. Sometimes the timing is just right and you fall for the first person who comes along. If you're looking for a long term partner, people tend to choose people who are from the same background, same educational level and many of the same interests, values and goals. Anthropologists call it positive assertive mating.
Jerry Sinclair: I watched your programme with interest, but is love all a chemical process or is their more to it than that?
Dr. Helen Fisher: Love is much more than chemistry. Love can be spiritual, it can be full of memories and experiences and adventures - but the actual feeling that you have as you are in love is produced by chemistry.
Hugh Lynch: What about hate? Where does that stem from?
Dr. Helen Fisher: Nobody knows the brain's circuitry and relationship between love and hate. Some day I hope to discover that connection. I think they are closely connected because when people are disappointed in love, their love can turn to hate. The opposite of love is not hate but indifference.
Wendy Vaizey: Do you think there could be a chemical antidote to falling in love?
Dr. Helen Fisher: We don't yet know a chemical antidote to falling in love. But we will some day know the chemicals involved in falling in love. Even then they will be very hard to control. Men and women were built to fall in love. This emotion evolved millions of years ago.
Adrian Amstead: Would it follow that if a man were to engage in, shall we say, solo sexual activity, instead of pursuit of the object of his desire, the the release of hormones would lead him to misplaced obsession and attachment. Could this be a reason for the stalking phenomenon?
Dr. Helen Fisher: It is true that there are connections between these hormones. For example, when you make love to somebody, at orgasm, levels of oxytocin and vasopressin go up. These chemicals are associated with attachment - that's why you can feel so attached to somebody you just made love to. Stalking, I think, is associated with different chemicals. People stalk when they've been romantically rejected. It is my guess that dopamine and norepinephrine are involved.
Brid Duane: Hypothetically- can a deaf, dumb and blind person fall in love?
Dr. Helen Fisher:Certainly. This emotion system in the brain evolved in all of us. I think you can fall in love at any age. I think you can fall in love under almost any circumstances.
Kristen Timpson: What about love for our family, is that something separate all together?
Dr. Helen Fisher: I think love of family stems from the brain chemistry for attachment, the third of these emotion systems.
Clare Wright: Is there any reason why it may be difficult for a woman to fall in love with a male transvestite?
Dr. Helen Fisher:I can think of a lot of reasons why it might be difficult. From a Darwinian perspective, women evolved a preference for falling in love with heterosexual men who could help them rear their young. This is an unconscious drive. Most women will look for a heterosexual, straight-dressing man. There is great human variation.
Wendy Vaizey: If falling in love is two people simultaneously having separate chemical reactions, is it known what initiates the process?
Dr. Helen Fisher: Wonderful question. Of course it doesn't take two people - alas, many of us fall in love with somebody who's not in love with us. But what triggers love is not chemistry but your childhood experiences. In child hood we built an unconscious list of what we're looking for in a mate. Then if that person comes by who fits within that love map, that person may trigger your brain chemistry.
Toria Leeds: I was stunned to learn of the effects of Congenital Adrenal Hyperplasia (CAH) on 'Body Chemistry' tonight. As a child I disliked dolls and loved playing with toy cars and anything with wheels really. Physically I am a completely 'normal' woman, but mentally I have always behaved more like a male. Could this somehow be related to CAH and possibly why I find it difficult to be dependent on my partner?
Dr. Helen Fisher: You would have to go to a medical doctor and find out how high your levels of testosterone are and whether they are associated with CAH. But all kinds of women do have high levels of testosterone who were not CAH babies.
Nick Frank: What about people who have never had a serious relationship, never fallen in love? Could the reason be ascribed to a chemical imbalance or is it more likely to be psychological?
Dr. Helen Fisher: There's always a psychological component to any behaviour. We do know there are a few people who seem to have a chemical composition such that they tend not to fall in love. But generally, I would guess, the psychological component is even more important.
Ramesh Paranjpe: I found that my parents did not give me any love and therefore I feel incapable of loving anyone. Is it possible to love even though I was not loved?
Dr. Helen Fisher: Wonderful question. I think it's very possible to love even though your parents didn't love you. I think that brain chemistry is there and the day may come when you fall in love. This is a primitive, basic, powerful emotion. Most people do end up falling in love. No matter what their childhood was like.
Kristen Timpson: Is it possible a woman to fall in infatuation and obsessive love after her menopause?
Dr. Helen Fisher: Very definitely. I think this is a basic brain circuit, just like the brain circuitry for fear and anger and surprise. It can be triggered at any age. But the circumstances have to be right.
Paul Roy: What is the difference between love and lust in terms of brain regions involved?
Dr. Helen Fisher: Love and lust are very different emotion systems. The primary hormone of the sex drive is testosterone in both men and women. The brain system is quite different from that of romantic love. In fact, we all know these are not always connected. You can make love to somebody you are not romantically in love with and you can be romantically obsessed with somebody you've never slept with.
Tina Livingstone: Could I pick up on the love map theory having been married twice and being happy in my third partnership I can say that my choices appear to have precious little similarities; do you think my map was too big or that my hormones are simply firing off independently of it?
Dr. Helen Fisher:Love maps are very unconscious, often quite unknown to the person who has them. Partners can look and act very different but they may have some real similarities. For example, both men might be caretakers - something that you like - or they might be flamboyant - but in very different ways. Plus you have changed in the course of your life and your love map has changed, too.
Molly Wells: Is falling in love is good indicator of compatibility? Should you always go with it, assuming you have a choice?
Dr. Helen Fisher: Falling in love is not always an indicator of compatibility! Sometimes we fall for totally the wrong person. That other emotion -attachment, often comes with real compatibility.
Tony Mowbray: Can thinking about love in such a scientific way affect your psychology about love, and can your psychology affect the hormones?
Dr. Helen Fisher: It hasn't with me, in spite of everything I know about love - I'm the same sucker everybody else is. Just like fear - you can study fear for twenty years and still be scared when a taxi cab rushes towards you.
Clare_de: What happens chemically when people fall OUT of love?
Dr. Helen Fisher: I don't know yet, but if the relationship evolves into attachment, I suspect levels of serotonin go up, levels of dopamine and norepinephrine go down and levels of oxytocin and vasopressin increase, gradually moving you from romantic love to attachment.
Tally Rogalla: Where can one buy a love map?
Dr. Helen Fisher: You can't buy a love map. Somewhere between ages five and eight you begin to develop an unconscious list of what you are looking for in a mate. Your love map depends on subtle things in your childhood like the amount of chaos in the house, other peoples' interests and values. You already have a love map - you just probably want to buy a different one!
Clare Wright: What chemistry is involved with a broken heart and depression?
Dr. Helen Fisher: I don't know yet but I think that romantic rejection drives levels of dopamine up so high that you feel tremendous anxiety and fear, and it drives levels of serotonin down so low that you obsessively think about the problem.
Maria: my friends can't understand how I can fancy desperately, a guy who is older, fatter and uglier than my current boyfriend. Neither can I in the cold light of day but given a choice I know who I'd go to bed with. Why do I fancy him?
Dr. Helen Fisher: Because love is blind, as Chaucer said. Once you fall in love with somebody you can list what you don't like about them but the rational brain is swamped by feelings of love. Besides, he may be funnier and smarter and better in bed.
Brid Duane: Basically is it just our DNA trying to replicate the species that makes us fall in love to procreate, and could a time come when in the future through some accident that effects that part of our DNA the human species could be wiped out.
Dr. Helen Fisher: Good question. Yes. The mating game is the most important game in town. We evolved much of the brain to direct us to form pair bonds, mate and have children. I don't think that those genes or that brain physiology will ever be tamped down. We will be wiped out by external forces or through war.
Jon Anon: Is there anyway of enticing girls into liking me, since I am 14 and haven't been kissed by a girl?
Dr. Helen Fisher: Yes. Girls like boys who listen to them and talk to them and do things with them and laugh with them. You just have to start to flirt with girls.
Ron Dutch: My wife and I are really looking for something to increase her sex drive, do you think some of that testosterone cream will work for anybody?
Dr. Helen Fisher: Testosterone cream does enhance the sex drive in both men and women. I know several people who use it. It increases sexual thoughts, sexual energy and even increases the number of orgasms. But there's more to the sex drive than testosterone. People are excited by novelty. Why don't you try doing something different ?
BBC Host: Thanks for all your excellent questions for Dr Helen Fisher. We'll be finishing in 5 minutes, so if you have any questions you'd like answered, please send them now.
Chris: Is anything understood about why the different hormones have the psychological effects they do?
Dr. Helen Fisher: No, we don't really know. That's almost a metaphysical question. We know how the body works to some extent but how feelings are interpreted is a larger issue.
Roy: Is it more common for women to be bi-sexual than men?
Dr. Helen Fisher: There is evidence that women are more bisexual than men. Men seem to be orientated either one way or the other more regularly. I think this gender difference evolved. Males needed to inseminate; females needed to have a mate to rear their young. If they couldn't catch a male, maybe an older female would do. Female bisexuality was an adaptive mechanism. This flexibility helped them rear their young.
Anton Kali: Why do I love someone who hates me? The programme seemed to suggest only that people turned each other's chemistry on mutually.
Dr. Helen Fisher: I'm sorry the programme suggested that people turn each other on mutually. Most of us have loved people who didn't love us at some time. In fact, adversity can heighten love - when someone doesn't love you, you love them more.
W.D Wells: Help me! I’m 74 years old and a senior citizen. I think I’m in love with this woman at my bingo club..can a person of my age fall in love?
Dr. Helen Fisher: Absolutely. Go and love her - you'll feel fifteen again.
BBC Host: Just time for one more question...
M.K: A year ago, I ended a relationship of 10 years but I still love the person and it hurts. People say time heals all wounds but I still feel awful. Will I ever stop loving him?
Dr. Helen Fisher: Yes, you will. But sometimes it can take two or three years. Find some hobbies, make new friends, throw out his love letters and sit it out. Love will come around again - we're an animal built to love.
Thank you very much - they were really interesting questions. I am very positive about love. Women are more interesting than they've ever been and better educated. I think that men and women have a tremendous opportunity to find love in this century.
BBC Host: Our Body Chemistry live chat time is over for this evening - but many thanks for your overwhelming interest and excellent questions. Many apologies if your question didn't get answered; there just wasn't enough time to cover them all. Thanks again for being with us tonight.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/health/body_chemistry/livechat_transcript.shtml
Live Chat Transcript
with Dr Helen Fisher
(15 February 2000)
BBC Host: Thanks for logging on for Body Chemistry's live chat with Dr Helen Fisher. We hope you enjoyed the Body Chemistry series. Tonight, the subject of love. Here is the first question...
Charlie Baker: If I'm questioning whether or not I'm in love am I in love?
Dr. Helen Fisher: Love means different things to different people. But let me list some basic characteristics of romantic love. First, your partner takes on special meaning. They seem to become the centre of your universe. Second, you think about them obsessively, often continually. Third, you focus on tiny little things they said or did and replay these memories. Fourth, you feel real elation when things are going well between you and real despair when you're not getting along.
Rebecca Evans: How did researchers arrive at the figure of 30 months as the normal length of time the feeling of love lasts in a relationship?
Dr. Helen Fisher: Scientists do not believe that love lasts only three months. In the only study of romantic love so far, those individuals who were in love maintained that obsessive thinking and elation for about eighteen months.It can last much longer if there's a real barrier to the relationship - for example, if one of the partners is married to somebody else.
Andy: Can someone fall in love more than once? If so will it ever be as powerful as the first time?
Dr. Helen Fisher: Yes, I think the brain evolved to fall in love over and over again. I know a seventy-eight-year-old who just fell head over heels in love. Romantic love is a brain circuit - it can be triggered at any age.
Dawn McGowan: What about gay people? Do the rules differ for us? Do gay women, for instance, have higher levels of testosterone?
Dr. Helen Fisher: Very little is known about hormonal levels in gay women. I have a student who is studying testosterone levels in gay women right now. In America, there seem to be two kinds of gay women - what we call butch and femme. Butch women do tend to show indications of higher levels of testosterone. But this doesn't have to do with romantic love. Testosterone is associated with a different emotion - lust, or the sex drive.
John Wilson: If sexual arousal is defined in terms of a chemical reaction between two people, why are people aroused by pornography? Doesn't this imply that there is a 'secondary' process going on?
Dr. Helen Fisher: In the beginning of this chat I divided love into three varieties: lust, romantic love and attachment. I think lust evolved to get us out looking for anybody. It can be triggered by a lot of different stimuli. Men are particularly turned on by pornography - a visual image.
Michele Lockwood-Edwards: When someone falls in love are the chemical reactions so strong that they forget about any previous love partners
Dr. Helen Fisher: Wonderful question. I think that depends. If you were really hurt by somebody in the past you won't forget that experience, nor will you forget partners that you truly loved. But the chemistry of infatuation is so strong that these memories will seem rather unimportant to you as you focus on the new one.
Kerry Acheson: As a Final Year Undergraduate taking Pharmacology, I am interested to know how far we are away from finding the answers relating to 5-HT and Dopamine etc in the process of falling in love.
Dr. Helen Fisher: Sophisticated question. New work by scientists in Italy show that obsessive romantic love is associated with low levels of serotonin, and scientists in America have discovered that high levels of dopamine are associated with partner preference in prairie voles - little field mice. I myself have just begun to put infatuated people into a functional MRI machine. Maybe next year I can tell you more.
Jess Mookherjee: The programme tonight focused on brain chemistry. But what about the behavioural and ecological strategies that drove the brain chemistry to evolve? Could any answers be found from ecomonic game theory - regarding love and co- operation?
Dr. Helen Fisher: I think that all of the mammals have a basic brain chemistry for romantic attraction. I think this emotion circuit evolved in the brain so that animals could choose between potential partners, conserve their mating energy and focus their attention on the best available partner. I think ecological circumstances vary dramatically. Attraction in some creatures lasts only seconds. In humans, it can last months or years, due to many evolutionary factors.
Tiggy Tiger: How can people fall in love over the Internet without any chemicals passing between them?
Dr. Helen Fisher: Over the Internet you can communicate quite easily and in a very relaxed fashion. It's an intimate way to talk to somebody. It's probably quite easy to become attracted to somebody just through love letters. An important moment comes, however, when you actually see them. Many love affairs end when you actually see the person!
Jonathan Bishop: My horoscope says I will meet someone this week. Couldn't this just cause a placebo effect?
Dr. Helen Fisher: I hope your horoscope is true. Timing is important. If you're looking for love, you'll probably do more of the right things to find it. Good luck to you.
Andy: If a pill cannot be made to make people fall in love, can a pill be made to quench your desires?
Dr. Helen Fisher: I think pills can be made to reduce levels of dopamine so that you feel less elation. And we already have pills that help reduce obsessive thinking. But you also have to do some things yourself - most important, stay away from the person so the brain chemistry can decrease naturally.
Jon Anon: I am a 14 year old guy and recently I have been infatuated, then I got kind of obsessed with a girl I know at school. I really want to know how to stop this because it's disrupting my life, and the girl isn't a particularly nice person. To end my feelings towards her do I have to intravenously take Seratonin, or will this end soon?
Dr. Helen Fisher: Taking serotonin can help - but more important, stay away from her! Don't call her or write to her and go to the places where she goes; avoid her friends and anything that reminds you of her. Eventually your feelings will recede.
Adele Lievesley: Is it down to genetics that we fall for a particular type of person? I also read that people we fall for are usually a bit like ourselves?
Dr. Helen Fisher: There's many reasons for falling in love. Sometimes the timing is just right and you fall for the first person who comes along. If you're looking for a long term partner, people tend to choose people who are from the same background, same educational level and many of the same interests, values and goals. Anthropologists call it positive assertive mating.
Jerry Sinclair: I watched your programme with interest, but is love all a chemical process or is their more to it than that?
Dr. Helen Fisher: Love is much more than chemistry. Love can be spiritual, it can be full of memories and experiences and adventures - but the actual feeling that you have as you are in love is produced by chemistry.
Hugh Lynch: What about hate? Where does that stem from?
Dr. Helen Fisher: Nobody knows the brain's circuitry and relationship between love and hate. Some day I hope to discover that connection. I think they are closely connected because when people are disappointed in love, their love can turn to hate. The opposite of love is not hate but indifference.
Wendy Vaizey: Do you think there could be a chemical antidote to falling in love?
Dr. Helen Fisher: We don't yet know a chemical antidote to falling in love. But we will some day know the chemicals involved in falling in love. Even then they will be very hard to control. Men and women were built to fall in love. This emotion evolved millions of years ago.
Adrian Amstead: Would it follow that if a man were to engage in, shall we say, solo sexual activity, instead of pursuit of the object of his desire, the the release of hormones would lead him to misplaced obsession and attachment. Could this be a reason for the stalking phenomenon?
Dr. Helen Fisher: It is true that there are connections between these hormones. For example, when you make love to somebody, at orgasm, levels of oxytocin and vasopressin go up. These chemicals are associated with attachment - that's why you can feel so attached to somebody you just made love to. Stalking, I think, is associated with different chemicals. People stalk when they've been romantically rejected. It is my guess that dopamine and norepinephrine are involved.
Brid Duane: Hypothetically- can a deaf, dumb and blind person fall in love?
Dr. Helen Fisher:Certainly. This emotion system in the brain evolved in all of us. I think you can fall in love at any age. I think you can fall in love under almost any circumstances.
Kristen Timpson: What about love for our family, is that something separate all together?
Dr. Helen Fisher: I think love of family stems from the brain chemistry for attachment, the third of these emotion systems.
Clare Wright: Is there any reason why it may be difficult for a woman to fall in love with a male transvestite?
Dr. Helen Fisher:I can think of a lot of reasons why it might be difficult. From a Darwinian perspective, women evolved a preference for falling in love with heterosexual men who could help them rear their young. This is an unconscious drive. Most women will look for a heterosexual, straight-dressing man. There is great human variation.
Wendy Vaizey: If falling in love is two people simultaneously having separate chemical reactions, is it known what initiates the process?
Dr. Helen Fisher: Wonderful question. Of course it doesn't take two people - alas, many of us fall in love with somebody who's not in love with us. But what triggers love is not chemistry but your childhood experiences. In child hood we built an unconscious list of what we're looking for in a mate. Then if that person comes by who fits within that love map, that person may trigger your brain chemistry.
Toria Leeds: I was stunned to learn of the effects of Congenital Adrenal Hyperplasia (CAH) on 'Body Chemistry' tonight. As a child I disliked dolls and loved playing with toy cars and anything with wheels really. Physically I am a completely 'normal' woman, but mentally I have always behaved more like a male. Could this somehow be related to CAH and possibly why I find it difficult to be dependent on my partner?
Dr. Helen Fisher: You would have to go to a medical doctor and find out how high your levels of testosterone are and whether they are associated with CAH. But all kinds of women do have high levels of testosterone who were not CAH babies.
Nick Frank: What about people who have never had a serious relationship, never fallen in love? Could the reason be ascribed to a chemical imbalance or is it more likely to be psychological?
Dr. Helen Fisher: There's always a psychological component to any behaviour. We do know there are a few people who seem to have a chemical composition such that they tend not to fall in love. But generally, I would guess, the psychological component is even more important.
Ramesh Paranjpe: I found that my parents did not give me any love and therefore I feel incapable of loving anyone. Is it possible to love even though I was not loved?
Dr. Helen Fisher: Wonderful question. I think it's very possible to love even though your parents didn't love you. I think that brain chemistry is there and the day may come when you fall in love. This is a primitive, basic, powerful emotion. Most people do end up falling in love. No matter what their childhood was like.
Kristen Timpson: Is it possible a woman to fall in infatuation and obsessive love after her menopause?
Dr. Helen Fisher: Very definitely. I think this is a basic brain circuit, just like the brain circuitry for fear and anger and surprise. It can be triggered at any age. But the circumstances have to be right.
Paul Roy: What is the difference between love and lust in terms of brain regions involved?
Dr. Helen Fisher: Love and lust are very different emotion systems. The primary hormone of the sex drive is testosterone in both men and women. The brain system is quite different from that of romantic love. In fact, we all know these are not always connected. You can make love to somebody you are not romantically in love with and you can be romantically obsessed with somebody you've never slept with.
Tina Livingstone: Could I pick up on the love map theory having been married twice and being happy in my third partnership I can say that my choices appear to have precious little similarities; do you think my map was too big or that my hormones are simply firing off independently of it?
Dr. Helen Fisher:Love maps are very unconscious, often quite unknown to the person who has them. Partners can look and act very different but they may have some real similarities. For example, both men might be caretakers - something that you like - or they might be flamboyant - but in very different ways. Plus you have changed in the course of your life and your love map has changed, too.
Molly Wells: Is falling in love is good indicator of compatibility? Should you always go with it, assuming you have a choice?
Dr. Helen Fisher: Falling in love is not always an indicator of compatibility! Sometimes we fall for totally the wrong person. That other emotion -attachment, often comes with real compatibility.
Tony Mowbray: Can thinking about love in such a scientific way affect your psychology about love, and can your psychology affect the hormones?
Dr. Helen Fisher: It hasn't with me, in spite of everything I know about love - I'm the same sucker everybody else is. Just like fear - you can study fear for twenty years and still be scared when a taxi cab rushes towards you.
Clare_de: What happens chemically when people fall OUT of love?
Dr. Helen Fisher: I don't know yet, but if the relationship evolves into attachment, I suspect levels of serotonin go up, levels of dopamine and norepinephrine go down and levels of oxytocin and vasopressin increase, gradually moving you from romantic love to attachment.
Tally Rogalla: Where can one buy a love map?
Dr. Helen Fisher: You can't buy a love map. Somewhere between ages five and eight you begin to develop an unconscious list of what you are looking for in a mate. Your love map depends on subtle things in your childhood like the amount of chaos in the house, other peoples' interests and values. You already have a love map - you just probably want to buy a different one!
Clare Wright: What chemistry is involved with a broken heart and depression?
Dr. Helen Fisher: I don't know yet but I think that romantic rejection drives levels of dopamine up so high that you feel tremendous anxiety and fear, and it drives levels of serotonin down so low that you obsessively think about the problem.
Maria: my friends can't understand how I can fancy desperately, a guy who is older, fatter and uglier than my current boyfriend. Neither can I in the cold light of day but given a choice I know who I'd go to bed with. Why do I fancy him?
Dr. Helen Fisher: Because love is blind, as Chaucer said. Once you fall in love with somebody you can list what you don't like about them but the rational brain is swamped by feelings of love. Besides, he may be funnier and smarter and better in bed.
Brid Duane: Basically is it just our DNA trying to replicate the species that makes us fall in love to procreate, and could a time come when in the future through some accident that effects that part of our DNA the human species could be wiped out.
Dr. Helen Fisher: Good question. Yes. The mating game is the most important game in town. We evolved much of the brain to direct us to form pair bonds, mate and have children. I don't think that those genes or that brain physiology will ever be tamped down. We will be wiped out by external forces or through war.
Jon Anon: Is there anyway of enticing girls into liking me, since I am 14 and haven't been kissed by a girl?
Dr. Helen Fisher: Yes. Girls like boys who listen to them and talk to them and do things with them and laugh with them. You just have to start to flirt with girls.
Ron Dutch: My wife and I are really looking for something to increase her sex drive, do you think some of that testosterone cream will work for anybody?
Dr. Helen Fisher: Testosterone cream does enhance the sex drive in both men and women. I know several people who use it. It increases sexual thoughts, sexual energy and even increases the number of orgasms. But there's more to the sex drive than testosterone. People are excited by novelty. Why don't you try doing something different ?
BBC Host: Thanks for all your excellent questions for Dr Helen Fisher. We'll be finishing in 5 minutes, so if you have any questions you'd like answered, please send them now.
Chris: Is anything understood about why the different hormones have the psychological effects they do?
Dr. Helen Fisher: No, we don't really know. That's almost a metaphysical question. We know how the body works to some extent but how feelings are interpreted is a larger issue.
Roy: Is it more common for women to be bi-sexual than men?
Dr. Helen Fisher: There is evidence that women are more bisexual than men. Men seem to be orientated either one way or the other more regularly. I think this gender difference evolved. Males needed to inseminate; females needed to have a mate to rear their young. If they couldn't catch a male, maybe an older female would do. Female bisexuality was an adaptive mechanism. This flexibility helped them rear their young.
Anton Kali: Why do I love someone who hates me? The programme seemed to suggest only that people turned each other's chemistry on mutually.
Dr. Helen Fisher: I'm sorry the programme suggested that people turn each other on mutually. Most of us have loved people who didn't love us at some time. In fact, adversity can heighten love - when someone doesn't love you, you love them more.
W.D Wells: Help me! I’m 74 years old and a senior citizen. I think I’m in love with this woman at my bingo club..can a person of my age fall in love?
Dr. Helen Fisher: Absolutely. Go and love her - you'll feel fifteen again.
BBC Host: Just time for one more question...
M.K: A year ago, I ended a relationship of 10 years but I still love the person and it hurts. People say time heals all wounds but I still feel awful. Will I ever stop loving him?
Dr. Helen Fisher: Yes, you will. But sometimes it can take two or three years. Find some hobbies, make new friends, throw out his love letters and sit it out. Love will come around again - we're an animal built to love.
Thank you very much - they were really interesting questions. I am very positive about love. Women are more interesting than they've ever been and better educated. I think that men and women have a tremendous opportunity to find love in this century.
BBC Host: Our Body Chemistry live chat time is over for this evening - but many thanks for your overwhelming interest and excellent questions. Many apologies if your question didn't get answered; there just wasn't enough time to cover them all. Thanks again for being with us tonight.
no subject
Date: 2002-06-16 04:44 pm (UTC)Reaction 2: I don't believe more than two sentences of what the woman is saying. My gut instinct in reading the whole thing was "no, no, no, no, no."
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Date: 2002-06-16 06:04 pm (UTC)Anything that particularly struck you the wrong way?
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Date: 2002-06-17 04:11 pm (UTC)Reaction to reaction 1
Date: 2002-06-16 09:16 pm (UTC)Re: Reaction to reaction 1
Date: 2002-06-16 09:35 pm (UTC)But it's more fun if I do it intentionally.
Or do you mean I should program children to have a Jerry love map? Not too hard. I have one.
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Date: 2002-06-16 05:12 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2002-06-16 06:08 pm (UTC)(What will you be your area of emphasis?)
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Date: 2002-06-16 07:53 pm (UTC)(and just for the record...she's not my major advisor. but i've had some classes with her and she might end up on my committee.)