Love is more than just a kiss: a neurobiological perspective on love and affection
Abstract
Love, attachment, and truth of human monogamy have become important research themes in neuroscience. After the introduction of functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) and Positron Emission Tomography (PET), neuroscientists have demonstrated increased interest in the neurobiology and neurochemistry of emotions, including love and affection. Neurobiologists have studied pair-bonding mechanisms in animal models of mate choice to elucidate neurochemical mechanisms underlying attachment and showed possible roles for oxytocin, vasopressin, and dopamine and their receptors in pair-bonding and monogamy. Unresolved is whether these substances are also critically involved in human attachment. The limited number of available imaging studies on love and affection is hampered by selection bias on gender, duration of a love affair, and cultural differences. Brain activity patterns associated with romantic love, shown with fMRI, overlapped with regions expressing oxytocin receptors in the animal models, but definite proof for a role of oxytocin in human attachment is still lacking. There is also evidence for a role of serotonin, cortisol, nerve growth factor, and testosterone in love and attachment. Changes in brain activity related to the various stages of a love affair, gender, and cultural differences are unresolved and will probably become important research themes in this field in the near future. In this review we give a resume of the current knowledge of the neurobiology of love and attachment and we discuss in brief the truth of human monogamy.
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Romantic relationships have three phases that share some biological substrates but involve different brain systems.
“Importantly, three different phases in romantic relationships have been defined that share common biological substrates but also involve different brain systems (11,35,36).”
From Oxytocin enhances brain reward system responses in men viewing the face of their female partner (2013) · cites this paper as [35]
A number of other hormones and neurotransmitters are activated or enhanced during puberty, and are involved in how people experience romantic love, including oxytocin, vasopressin, dopamine, serotonin, and cortisol.
“Beyond gonadal hormones, a number of other hormones and neurotransmitters are activated or enhanced during puberty, and are involved in how people experience romantic love, including oxytocin, vasopressin, dopamine, serotonin, and cortisol (De Boer et al., 2012).”
From Becoming a sexual being: The “elephant in the room” of adolescent brain development (2017) · cites this paper as De Boer et al., 2012
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Delorme, R., Chabane, N., Callebert, J., Falissard, B., Mouren, M., Rouillon, F., Launay, J., & Leboyer, M. (2004) · Journal of Clinical Psychopharmacology · doi:10.1097/01.jcp.0000104905.75206.50 · Cited by 33 · see citing works
From affiliative behaviors to romantic feelings: A role of nanopeptides
Dębiec, J. (2007) · FEBS Letters · doi:10.1016/j.febslet.2007.03.095 · Cited by 29 · see citing works
TEMPORAL COURSE OF THE BASIC COMPONENTS OF LOVE THROUGHOUT RELATIONSHIPS
García, C. Y. (1998) · Psychology in Spain · Cited by 28 · see citing works
Kim, W., Kim, S., Jeong, J., Lee, K.-U., Ahn, K.-J., Chung, Y.-A., Hong, K.-Y., & Chae, J.-H. (2009) · Psychiatry Investigation · doi:10.4306/pi.2009.6.1.19 · Cited by 28 · see citing works
INFLUENCE OF HEMODYNAMIC FACTORS ON SODIUM REABSORPTION*
Earley, L. E. (1966) · Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences · doi:10.1111/j.1749-6632.1966.tb41206.x · Cited by 26 · see citing works
Monogamy: dopamine ties the knot
Edwards, S., & Self, D. W. (2005) · Nature Neuroscience · doi:10.1038/nn0106-7 · Cited by 24 · see citing works
Wang, J., Keown, L., Patten, S. B., Williams, J. A., Currie, S. R., Beck, C. A., Maxwell, C. J., & el‐Guebaly, N. (2008) · Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology · doi:10.1007/s00127-008-0482-2 · Cited by 23 · see citing works
Gioiosa, L., Iannitelli, A., & Aloe, L. (2009) · Rivista di psichiatria · doi:10.1708/420.4978 · Cited by 20 · see citing works
Endocrine factors of pair bonding.
Stárka, L. (2007) · PubMed · Cited by 15 · see citing works
A new silent C to T polymorphism in the exon 3 of the oxytocin receptor gene
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Cited by
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The neuroendocrinology of social isolation
Cacioppo, J. T., Cacioppo, S., Capitanio, J. P., & Cole, S. W. (2015) · Annual Review of Psychology · doi:10.1146/annurev-psych-010814-015240 · Cited by 977 · see citing works
Oxytocin enhances brain reward system responses in men viewing the face of their female partner
Scheele, D., Wille, A., Kendrick, K. M., Stoffel-Wagner, B., Becker, B., Güntürkün, O., Maier, W., & Hurlemann, R. (2013) · Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences · doi:10.1073/pnas.1314190110 · Cited by 345 · see citing works
Becoming a sexual being: The “elephant in the room” of adolescent brain development
Suleiman, A. B., Galván, A., Harden, K. P., & Dahl, R. E. (2017) · Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience · doi:10.1016/j.dcn.2016.09.004 · Cited by 89 · see citing works
Blum, K., Thompson, B., Demotrovics, Z., Femino, J., Giordano, J., Oscar-Berman, M., Teitelbaum, S., Smith, D. E., Roy, A. K., Agan, G., et al. (2015) · Journal of Reward Deficiency Syndrome · doi:10.17756/jrds.2015-008 · Cited by 73 · see citing works
When Two Become One: The Role of Oxytocin in Interpersonal Coordination and Cooperation
Arueti, M., Perach-Barzilay, N., Tsoory, M. M., Berger, B., Getter, N., & Shamay-Tsoory, S. G. (2013) · Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience · doi:10.1162/jocn_a_00400 · Cited by 67 · see citing works
The influence of oxytocin on volitional and emotional ambivalence
Preckel, K., Scheele, D., Eckstein, M., Maier, W., & Hurlemann, R. (2015) · Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience · doi:10.1093/scan/nsu147 · Cited by 41 · see citing works
The Science of Love: State of the Art
Marazziti, D., Palermo, S., & Mucci, F. (2021) · Advances in Experimental Medicine and Biology · doi:10.1007/978-3-030-74046-7_16 · Cited by 20 · see citing works
- Authors
- de Boer, A., van Buel, E. M., & Ter Horst, G. J.
- Venue
- Neuroscience
- Publisher
- Elsevier BV
- Published
- 2012-01
- Volume
- 201
- Pages
- 114-124
- ISSN
- 0306-4522 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W2153948627
- Cited by
- 123
- References
- 111
- Citations by year
- 2026: 6 · 2025: 6 · 2024: 8 · 2023: 9 · 2022: 10 · 2021: 6 · 2020: 8 · 2019: 5 · 2018: 8 · 2017: 13 · 2016: 10 · 2015: 11 · 2014: 14 · 2013: 6 · 2012: 3
- FWCI
- 0.92
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Neuroscience (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- University of Groningen research database (University of Groningen / Centre for Information Technology) (submittedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Neuroendocrine regulation and behavior
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Attachment and Relationship Dynamics
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cellular and Molecular Neuroscience › Neurotransmitter Receptor Influence on Behavior
- Keywords
- love, affection, attachment, pair bonding, oxytocin, vasopressin, dopamine, serotonin, cortisol, nerve growth factor, testosterone, romantic love
- MeSH terms
- Affect, Animals, Brain, Endocrine System, Female, Humans, Love, Male, Neurobiology, Radionuclide Imaging, Neurotransmitter Agents
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
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