Anti-heartbreak Drug

It is, again, the time of the year wherein red hearts flutter around every corner, and bright flowers are here and there. It is when lovers can be seen everywhere, and love is in the air. Yes, it is February once again.

               

Time and again, scientists search for the science in love, a neural basis for it, a cure for its ills. Although a cure for heartbreak is a taboo for us, there is a statement saying that such drug could help “people struggling with suicidal or delusional thoughts because of unrequited love, or those in the clutches of unrelenting grief.” And no matter how unethical it sounds to others, this subject is really intriguing.

First, let us define love. Some say that it is when you want to hold his/her hand even if it is sweaty, or when you only see him/her when in a crowd. On the other hand, neuroscientists define love as “a neurobiological phenomenon that falls into three subtypes: lust, attraction and attachment – all of which increase our reproductive and parental success.”

Overlapping chemicals are observed in each aspect and these can be diminished, says Helen Fisher at Rutgers University in New Jersey. Say lust. Obsessing over tiny details of someone resembles the symptoms of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). Therefore, in a research made by Donatella Marazziti at the University of Pisa in Italy, she “compared the brains of 20 people in the first throes of love with those of 20 people with OCD. Both groups had unusually low levels of a protein that transports serotonin – a hormone involved in regulating mood – around the brain. Retesting the lovers a year later revealed that their serotonin levels had increased, and that they no longer reported an obsessive focus on their partners.”

“Drugs that boost serotonin can offer relief to people with OCD, so it's reasonable to think that they could also help to dampen lustful feelings. These drugs include antidepressants called selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, which are known to blunt extreme emotions, and make it harder to form romantic bonds. This is an unwanted side effect for people with depression, but for those seeking to detach from someone, it could be welcome.”

On the other hand, Larry Young of Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia studied prairie voles. These rodents are monogamous – it forms one life-long bond. When he “injected female voles with a drug that blocked either dopamine or oxytocin, they became polygamous. ‘This suggests you might be able to block oxytocin and sever a long-term attachment,’ says Young. His team has also shown that blocking corticotropin-releasing factor (CRF), a hormone involved in the stress response, stops the depressive behaviour that prairie voles exhibit when their partner dies. Young doesn't recommend blocking CRF for unrequited love, but he says it could be helpful to relieve the depression that comes with persistent grief.”

Nonetheless, according to Fisher, time is still the answer. Her team found out that “people pining after a lost love have greater brain activity in the ventral pallidum … than people who were happily in love,” but it also went down with their attachment as time passed by. “One day it might even be possible to use brain stimulation to decrease activity in the ventral pallidum, to speed up the healing effects of time, she says. Until then, it seems what your mother told you about heartbreak still rings true: you can't beat time and a little love from someone new."

Source: http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg22129564.600-cure-for-love-chemical-cures-for-the-lovesick.html#.Uv9BIWKSwgU