What is 'love brain'?
Neuroscience calls it an addiction
You definitely know someone like this
Usually smart, clear-headed, and sensible
But once they fall in love
They completely change
Everyone sees they're being lied to
Except them
Even with evidence in front of them
They still make excuses for the other
They can lose a whole night's sleep
Over one unreplied message
Checking their phone repeatedly
Staring at the chat window
It's not that they don't know it's wrong
They even say it themselves
"I know I'm being stupid"
"But I can't help it"
We have a name for this state
It's called 'love brain'
Most people think
It's a personality issue
Being irrational, dependent, or clingy
But 'love brain' isn't a character flaw
It's a biological state in your brain
When someone falls into it
The brain areas for calm judgment
Are literally dimmed
While the circuits for obsession and insomnia
Are the same ones lit up
In the brain of a drug addict
Hello
Hi everyone
I'm Wang Lijie
Today we'll break this down
What exactly is 'love brain'?
Why do smart people turn foolish in love?
Why are the unattainable most addictive?
Why does a breakup feel like a physical illness?
In the past
We blamed these on fate
On destiny, or being too devoted
But in the last twenty years
Neuroscience put brains into MRI scanners
To see what happens
When love strikes
The answer might be uncomfortable
But it's very honest
Let's start with an experiment
Over twenty years ago
An American anthropologist
named Helen Fisher
collaborated with psychologists
on a romantic yet hardcore study
They recruited young people in love
Those newly in love and obsessed
smiling foolishly all day long
They put them into fMRI scanners
and showed them two photos
One of their beloved
and one of a neutral acquaintance
The machine recorded
the moment they saw their lover's face
which brain regions lit up
The results were clear
When seeing a loved one
the areas that lit up
weren't the emotional regions
linked to tenderness or touch
but two deep, ancient areas
The ventral tegmental area
and the caudate nucleus
No need to remember the names
Just know these two areas
are the core of the reward system
responsible for dopamine
What is dopamine?
Think of it as the "wanting" signal
Note
it's not "pleasure"
it's "wanting"
It doesn't provide satisfaction
It drives craving and pursuit
making you feel "I must have it"
Like a gambler pulling a lever
or an addict seeing drugs
the part that lights up
is this exact system
So Helen Fisher made a bold claim
She said
romantic love
is not essentially an emotion
It is a motivation system
Unlike joy, sadness, or anger
it's like hunger or thirst—a drive
a primal urge to approach and possess
When you are in love
that restlessness and urgency
isn't tenderness
it's hunger
At this point you might say
Fine
Love makes you happy and motivated
I already knew that
But what really gives me chills
is the next part
Let's follow this system
three levels deeper
Level one
Why smart people turn stupid in love
We just saw which areas light up
But the same study found something more critical
Some areas
are actually turned off during love
Suppressed
Specifically part of the prefrontal cortex
Especially those responsible for critical judgment
and social assessment
Chinese researchers later scanned Chinese brains
The results were identical
Passionate love causes judgment of the beloved
to drop significantly
Think about that for a moment
It's not that they refuse to see flaws
It's that the brain's flaw-detection department
has its power temporarily dialed down
That's why onlookers see more clearly
It's not a metaphor
It's a physiological fact
The onlooker's prefrontal cortex is at full power
They can see the problems clearly
But the lover's prefrontal cortex is suppressed
They truly cannot see it
When you try to reason with a love-struck person
why doesn't it work?
Because the part of the brain that processes logic
is currently in power-saving mode
This level makes perfect evolutionary sense
If you were too rational or calculating in mating
seeing every single flaw clearly
you might never bond or reproduce
So evolution installed a mechanism at key moments
to dim the critical part of our reason
allowing you to dive in headfirst
The love-struck brain
is part of our factory settings
Level two
Why you can't help
thinking about them over and over
A classic symptom of love is a mind full of them
Can't even drive them away
Thinking while working
Thinking while eating
Thinking again right after seeing friends
This uncontrollable, repetitive thinking
Sound familiar?
It's neurochemically similar to OCD
An Italian psychiatric researcher
Named Donatella Marazziti
Conducted a famous study
Measuring serotonin markers in lovers
Found their serotonin activity
Was significantly low
How low?
Indistinguishable from OCD patients
Serotonin
Simply put
Is the brain's brake for stability
The neurotransmitter that says enough
When it drops
The brake that stops you fails
So the same thought, the same face
Loops in your mind over and over
Unable to stop
That post-breakup urge to check their feed
When your hands won't listen
Isn't a lack of willpower
It's the chemical system meant to stop you
Being in a suppressed state
From this perspective
Being in love itself
Is a socially acceptable form of OCD
This leads us
To the third layer
If love lights up rewards like a drug
And makes you unable to stop like OCD
Could it be
An addiction in itself?
This is what Helen Fisher proposed
She said
Intense romantic love
Is a natural addiction
It fits every trait of addiction
Euphoria - floating when you see them
Tolerance - needing more and more
One message isn't enough
You need to meet
Meeting isn't enough
You need to be together 24/7
Dependence - pain when apart
Withdrawal - feeling wrong when apart
And relapse - even after it's over
A late night, an old song
And you're pulled back in
The classic script of addiction
The strongest evidence
Comes from heartbreak
Researchers ran another experiment
On people recently dumped but still in love
They put them in scanners
And showed them photos of their exes
The results
The active areas of their brains
Overlapped with those in happy relationships
But with extra activity
Those extra areas
Are linked to cocaine addiction and craving
Did you catch that
When you're heartbroken
The parts of your brain activated
Are the same as an addict's cravings
It's the exact same circuit
That's why heartbreak hurts so much
Why you can't eat or sleep, feeling empty
It's not just being dramatic
It's a real neurological withdrawal
Your brain
Is going through full withdrawal symptoms
Telling someone to just get over it
Is like telling an addict to just endure it
The logic is sound
But the pain they feel
Has a physical reality
Understanding these three layers
Makes many things clear
Suddenly it all makes sense
For example
Why the one you can't have
Is the one you want most
Why someone hot and cold
Is the most addictive
While the one always there for you
Doesn't spark much feeling
Because the dopamine system
Its strongest reaction
Is never for a guaranteed reward
But for an uncertain one
That's how gambling hooks you
If every slot pull won
You'd get bored fast
Because it only hits sometimes
You keep pulling the lever
Someone who runs hot and cold
Turns your brain into a love slot machine
Their occasional response
Is that random jackpot
Hooking your dopamine system
The more unattainable they are
The more obsessed you get - not because they're great
But because of that uncertainty
It triggers your brain's oldest trap
Another example
Why love truly numbs pain
A study took people in new love
Applied mild pain stimuli
While they looked at photos of their partner
The results showed
Just looking at their face
Significantly reduced the pain felt
And the brain activated
The reward-based analgesic circuit
So "I'd walk through fire for you"
To some extent
Isn't just sweet talk - love actually acts
Like a temporary anesthetic
So here is the question
If love is so much like an addiction
Should we be wary of it
And treat it as something to quit
I don't think so
I want to
Look back 2,500 years
Actually
Humans noticed this side of love long ago
The Buddha
Used one specific term
To describe this state accurately
Thirsting Love
Note
The emphasis on "thirst"
He didn't say love is bad
He calmly pointed out
When we develop an intense, desperate grasp
That "must have it or suffer" craving
Suffering
Is born right there
The pain of parting and unfulfilled desire
Is exactly what he meant
The more you grasp someone like an addict
That rope you're holding
the more it will tighten around you
You see
Vipassana from 2,500 years ago
and MRI images from today
point to the same structural truth
Through inner observation, Buddha
saw the thread of craving
Modern neuroscience, through measurement
saw the dopamine circuit
Of course
this is the closest analogy I can find
It has flaws—Buddha's craving
is much broader than romantic love
It refers to our fundamental grasping
While neuroscience measures
only the specific addiction of love
The two aren't exactly the same
But that shared insight
I believe is true: what hurts you
is often not love itself
but the grasping for possession
So, knowing love is an addiction
should we still love?
My answer is
of course
You wouldn't stop eating just because
you know food brings pleasure
The point is never to quit love
but when you fall in again
losing sleep and checking your phone
making excuses for someone unworthy
you can have a sober inner voice
This voice doesn't judge you
It just tells you: you're not crazy
and you're not weak
It's an ancient million-year-old program
running at full speed in your brain
By seeing it run
you are no longer fully controlled by it
'Love brain' is not a disease
It's part of being human
You might worry that
breaking love down to dopamine
makes it cold or a buzzkill
I think the opposite
Knowing the structure of a flower
doesn't make you love it less
You just know what you love more clearly
and are less fooled by illusions
When you understand its mechanism
Then you have the chance
to be someone who loves deeply
without losing yourself completely
Loving with awareness
versus being driven by instinct
are two different ways of living
So let me ask, have you ever
looked back and wondered
how you could be so obsessed
Reviewing that time with this logic
what do you see now
Please share your story
in the comments below
I am Wang Lijie
See you next time