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Dopamine- which brings a pleasure rush and less need for sleep and food. Dopamine is also released by cocaine and nicotine.
Adrenalin- Lust activates the stress response, making your heart race and your hands sweat when faced with your object of lust. Your mouth may also go dry, making it hard to speak.
Serotonin- Serotonin is low, while dopamine is high. This causes the obsessive tendency to keep thinking about the person you lust after.
If you develop an attachment with your love interest then other body chemicals come into play.
Oxytocin- Is called the cuddle hormone, as it is released by cuddling, having sex and giving birth. Oxytocin increases attachment.
Vasopressin- Is also released by sex and it increases long-term commitment. (more info)
The Brain On Love
Scientists have also found the neurological difference between love and lust. Lust and love activate part of the brain called the striatum, but lust activates the area of the brain that responds to pleasure; while the part of the striatum involved in processing love, is involved in attaching value to the things that give us pleasure. This brain area is also involved in drug addiction.
Our eye gaze may also differentiate feelings of love from feelings of desire according to research in the journal Psychological Science, as research has shown that people tend to visually fixate on the face when images elicit feelings of romantic love; but when images stimulated sexual desire, the subjects’ eyes moved from the face to fixate on the rest of the body.
Books To Read
The Brain that Changes Itself: Stories of Personal Triumph from the Frontiers of Brain Science, by Norman Doidge -a book on neuroplasticity by psychiatrist and psychoanalyst Norman Doidge.
