Helen Fisher
Helen Fisher
Helen E. Fisher is an American anthropologist, human behavior researcher, and self-help author. She is a biological anthropologist, is a Senior Research Fellow, at The Kinsey Institute, Indiana University, and a Member of the Center For Human Evolutionary Studies in the Department of Anthropology at Rutgers University. Prior to Rutgers University, she was a research associate at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionScientist
Date of Birth31 May 1945
CountryUnited States of America
The brain system for romantic love is associated with intense energy, focused energy, obsessive things - a host of characteristics that you can feel not just toward a mating sweetheart, ... there's every reason to think that girls can fall in love with other girls without feeling sexual towards them, without the intention to marry them.
There are cognitive processes and limbic reactions associated with basic emotions. And you can change brain chemistry, but you're still not going to change memories and experiences in a human being.
The human brain is built to compare; it's Darwinian to consider an alternative when one presents itself.
Until recently, we regarded love as supernatural. We were willing to study the brain chemistry of fear and depression and anger but not love.
The brain was not built to walk into a bar, where you know nobody, and start a conversation. That's not the way humanity has courted.
When you look at the brain regions associated with picking up data from the body, a huge amount of the brain is devoted to picking up information from the lips and tongue.
Any kind of novelty or excitement drives up dopamine in the brain, and dopamine is associated with romantic love.
[Women] tend to collect more pieces of data when they think, put them into more complex patterns, see more options and outcomes. They tend to be contextual, holistic thinkers.
When you massage someone, the levels of oxytocin go up in the brain, and oxytocin is one of the chemicals that drives attachment.
Blushing is thought to be linked to increased levels of norepinephrine in the brain, which may be associated with romantic feelings. It signals that we are interested and excited, which is attractive to men.
Romantic love is not an emotion. ... It's a drive. It comes from the motor of the mind, the wanting part of the mind, the craving part of the mind.
There's all kinds of reasons that you fall in love with one person rather than another: Timing is important. Proximity is important. Mystery is important. You fall in love with somebody who's somewhat mysterious, in part because mystery elevates dopamine in the brain, probably pushes you over that threshold to fall in love.
Experiences shape the brain, but the brain shapes the way we view experiences, too.
Romantic love is one of the most powerful of all human experiences. It is definitely more powerful than the sex drive.