Love and Desire: Brain Systems for Survival and More

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“Love and Desire: Brain Systems for Survival and More”

Lucy Brown, Clinical Professor of Neurology, Einstein College of Medicine

I have to admit – I walked away from Dr. Brown’s lecture thinking, “Well, now I know for sure that I am not in control of anything when it comes to desire.”  I found it interesting that intense love activated the most primal regions of the brain. Dr. Brown equated the fundamental urge to drink water when thirsty to the drive to pursue preferred mates. Furthermore, the drive to find and consume food and water does not fade if it goes unsatisfied, much like the drive for love or desire. The urge to find a significant other is both undeniable and inerasable. There is a certain comfort in that knowledge, but on the other hand, it’s also quite unsettling. It is no longer a matter of the heart, but rather of the reward system that has been built into the human brain by evolution. 

The more we talk about desire, the more I am convinced that love is merely the misjudgment of how unique the beloved is from any other human being. We are willing to overlook faults and tolerate behavior that we otherwise would not because we are entrenched in the thought that our beloved is different from everyone else. It seems like we are willing to do just about anything to maintain this idea that they are different – even if it means convincing ourselves of something we know intrinsically is false. Is this inclination towards delusion and denial indicative of the evolutionary motivation to seek preferred mates?

I would be curious to know what biological and psychological factors determine how we define our ‘preferred mate’. Many people pursue a specific type when it comes to romantic or sexual partners. While there are common universal traits that are considered attractive (facial symmetry, for example), each individual has a number of quirky physical preferences that they seek in a partner. I would love to see research about why an individual might prefer curly hair and thin lips over straight hair and full lips, etc.

Dr. Brown investigated love on a very clinical and scientific basis, which makes for a stronger argument of its importance for the left brained demographic. I think many people discredit emotions and behaviors associated with love as weaknesses. However, when it is looked at in a laboratory, the findings are inarguable. The creative, intuitive, or feeling individuals can readily see what hasn’t been decoded by science – that human motivation is severely influenced by desire. When an esteemed researcher puts love on equal footing with life and death, it’s difficult, even for a strictly logical thinker, to deny the significance of love to human nature.