The Science of Romance: Brains Have a Love Circuit

"In humans, there are four tiny areas of the brain that some researchers say form a circuit of love. Acevedo, who works at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York, is part of a team that has isolated those regions with the unromantic names of ventral tegmental area (VTA), the nucleus accumbens, the ventral pallidum and raphe nucleus."

I ran across this vitally important information while taking my morning jog through the Huffington Post website. I try to go their daily just long enough to glean something extremely liberal to use in irritating my two boys who believe Bill O'Reily and Rush Limbaugh the direct descendents of Paul the Apostle and John the beloved disciple. What with Valentine Day just two days away and me being totally broke and unable to shower my wife with anything other apologies and promises of better times the article caught my attention.

"THE SCIENCE OF ROMANCE", most of us would be hooked by such a line after being bombarded with Hallmark advertising over the last couple of weeks. I really have to admit that after reading it all I was somewhat disappointed. I was looking for the magic lines that Tim McGraw used on his first few dates with Faith Hill or something I could use to make Patsy forget about diamonds or other shiny stuff. Instead I got a continuing education on Mrs. Martha Taylor's biology class. There won't be much I can do about ventral tegmental area, the nucleus accumbens, the ventral pallidum and the raphe nucleus. I did not know these places existed before I read the article, would not know how the use them or even where to find them if I tried.

This is the kind of thing I imagine the tax stimulus money is going to fund research on. This is not the 'science of romance' as it was billed because romance is something that happens between two ordinary people. Use to be that it was always between a man and a woman; today it apparently can be between two of anything that has breath, shape and form. In any event I don't think when romancing gets started that a lot of thought goes into kicking up the ventral tegmental area, the nucleus accumbens, the ventral pallidum and the raphe nucleus.

I do think the scientist that have moved us this far in the study of romance could tell us what effect some of the old standard pick-up lines have on these newly discovered areas. For instance, does it affect the ventral tegmental area, when a woman hears "get in the truck" or is the nucleus accumbens stimulated when just seconds later the same woman hears, "get in the truck now, damnit"? What part of the brain turns to mush when a lady hears, "Is there an airport nearby or is that just my heart taking off"? or "What time do you have to be back in heaven"? Real research a man can use is needed here. There are enough science books that set out body parts and organs; we need information we can use.