Lucy L. Brown

TL;DR: The results suggest that romantic love uses subcortical reward and motivation systems to focus on a specific individual, that limbic cortical regions process individual emotion factors, and that there is localization heterogeneity for reward functions in the human brain.

TL;DR: FMRI results suggest that dopaminergic reward and motivation pathways contribute to aspects of romantic love, and contribute to the view that romantic love is one of the three primary brain systems that evolved in avian and mammalian species to direct reproduction.

TL;DR: Results suggest that for some individuals the reward-value associated with a long-term partner may be sustained, similar to new love, but also involves brain systems implicated in attachment and pair-bonding.

TL;DR: FMRI results suggest that dopaminergic reward pathways contribute to the “general arousal” component of romantic love, and that the corticostriate system, with its potential for combining diverse cortical information with reward signals, is an excellent anatomical substrate for the complex factors contributing to romantic love and mate choice.

TL;DR: An ongoing project using functional magnetic resonance imaging of the brain to investigate the neural circuits associated with one of these emotion–motivation systems, romantic attraction is discussed.