Is Love Just a Chemical Cocktail?

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Is love just a chemical cocktail? | By Pallab Ghosh BBC News science correspondent | A rich experience, or just a bunch of chemicals? | It is said that love is a drug. But is it just a drug? That is the contention of Larry Young, a professor of neuroscience at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia. Writing in the respected scientific journal Nature, Professor Young argues that love can be explained by a series of neurochemical events in specific brain areas. If it is true, he says, people will no longer have to rely on oysters or chocolates to create a loving mood. Instead, it will be possible for scientists to develop aphrodisiacs - chemicals that would make people fall in love with the first person they see. And for those who have fallen in love with someone they shouldn't have, there could be an antidote to unrequited love. There is even the prospect of a genetic "love test" to assess whether two potential love-birds are predisposed to a happy married life. Not poetry Poets would have us believe that love is one of those things that are beyond understanding. But that concept is anathema to Professor Young. Oysters are known as one of the more traditional aphrodisiacs | "I'm not sure we'll be able to understand it fully," he said. "But my belief is that our emotions have evolved from behaviours and emotions that are in the animal kingdom. "I don't think that the way a mother loves her baby is that different to a mother's love in a chimpanzee or a rhesus monkey - or even a rat." In animals, scientists have observed that a chemical called oxytocin is involved in developing a bond between a mother and her young. Professor Young believes it is very likely that a similar process is going on in humans. "It's just that when we experience these emotions they are so rich we can't imagine that they are just a series of chemical events," he said. But even if that
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