Love Potion?

There is a hilarious article in the NYTimes about research into the biochemistry of love. Larry Young, a researcher in Social Neurobiology at Emory, recently published an article in the journal Nature that purports to explain much of the biological foundations of love. There is a sequence of drugs and hormones triggered by circumstances that produce the feelings and motivate the behaviours we call "love."

[Prairie voles] are among the small minority of mammals — less than 5 percent — who share humans’ propensity for monogamy. When a female prairie vole’s brain is artificially infused with oxytocin, a hormone that produces some of the same neural rewards as nicotine and cocaine, she’ll quickly become attached to the nearest male. A related hormone, vasopressin, creates urges for bonding and nesting when it is injected in male voles (or naturally activated by sex). After Dr. Young found that male voles with a genetically limited vasopressin response were less likely to find mates, Swedish researchers reported that men with a similar genetic tendency were less likely to get married. In his Nature essay, Dr. Young speculates that human love is set off by a “biochemical chain of events” that originally evolved in ancient brain circuits involving mother-child bonding, which is stimulated in mammals by the release of oxytocin during labor, delivery and nursing. (source)

So it is possible to create a love potion? "Absolutely," claims Young and his team:

“It would be completely unethical to give the drug to someone else,” he said, “but if you’re in a marriage and want to maintain that relationship, you might take a little booster shot yourself every now and then. Even now it’s not such a far-out possibility that you could use drugs in conjunction with marital therapy.” (source)

The funny part of the article comes from the author's speculation about the creation of an anti-love drug--a vaccine against the effects of love.

Could any discovery be more welcome? This is what humans have sought ever since Odysseus ordered his crew to tie him to the mast while sailing past the Sirens. Long before scientists identified neuroreceptors, long before Britney Spears’ quickie Vegas wedding or any of Larry King’s seven marriages, it was clear that love was a dangerous disease. (source)

Yet more avenues of treatment in the emerging field of cosmetic neurology. "Cosmetic Neurology," if you unfamiliar with the term, is the use of drugs to enhance otherwise healthy brains. They can give you drugs to make you feel good, work harder, react faster, focus better, or remember more. Imagine being able to take a drug that would temporarily improve your memory or focus just before a test? In fact, this is why Ritalin abuse has become so popular on University campuses. Interestingly, abuse of Ritalin is most common in the very competitive Universities of the northeast U.S. Despite the risks, kids are willing to take these (FDA Approved) drugs to gain an academic edge. I suppose the fact that these drugs have been approved for medically-supervised use is a comfort to abusers, but, of course, even Cocaine is FDA approved for certain conditions! In other words, just because it comes in a pill doesn't mean it won't kill you.

So once again science is opening up huge new ethical questions and opportunities!

-t