Love ---A chemical explosion in your brain (Part of the selected from VOA)
February 14 is Valentine's Day, the people all of the world ,especially young people , celebrate lovers and love relationship. They say nice things to each other, like "I love you with all my heart" or "I love you so much".
After all, many cultures show a big, beautiful ,red heart as the traditional sign of love.
But maybe it shouldn't be. Maybe the symbol of love should be a big, soft, gray brain. As it turns out, love is more an activity of the brain than an affair of the heart.
In 2010, researchers at Syracuse University in New York state worked with other scientists in West Virginia and Switzerland. They found that "12 areas of the brain work in tandem（串联） to release euphoric-inducing chemicals（欣快感的化学物质） such as dopamine（多巴胺）, oxytocin（催产素） and adrenaline（肾上腺素）.
When we are smitten with （神魂颠倒）someone, chemicals such as adrenaline make our face turn red, our hands sweat and our heart beat faster.
The website Health.com describes dopamine as the brain's pleasure chemical，that makes lovers feel happy and energetic about each other.
Oxytocin is known as the "love hormone" (爱的荷尔蒙)because it deepens feelings of attachment. Oxytocin is the hormone that plays a role duringpregnancy（怀孕）, nursing(养育) and in mother-baby attachment（母婴接触）.
As a side note, they also found that falling in love takes about "a fifth of a second." They wanted to know if lust and love affected the brain differently.
They found that love and lust（性欲） activate specific, but related areas of the brain.
What they found, for the most part, is that sexual desire and love seem to affect two parts of the brain the most: the insula（脑岛） and the striatum（终脑的皮层）. It's no surprise that they found these are also parts of the brain most often affected by drug use.
But now, let's get back to lust versus love.
Lustful, sexual desires begin in the pleasure center of the striatum. As these feelings develop into attachment love, they appear to still be processed in the striatum but in a different area. This area is activated by love. And it is involved in the process of giving value to things that give us pleasure, like food, sex and drugs. Love works the same way in the brain as when people become addicted to drugs.
So, if you celebrate Valentine's Day remember that your feelings of love are really a complicated chemical reaction happening in your brain -- which if you like science -- is actually kind of sexy.
However, if your partner isn't so scientifically-minded, maybe keep the science to yourself and instead give them a gift of flowers or chocolate this Valentine's Day.
Finally , wish all of you guys happy Valentine's Day!
