The essay, “The Brain in Love” focuses on the subject of romantic attraction and brain chemistry. In this article, the author, Benedict Carey, explains the various research done by different scientists to decipher the brain and its role on love and affection. Some scientists may say that love is about understanding an individual in many different ways, while others may conclude that love is about romantic attraction. Scientific research suggests that romantic attraction is primitive, that its in the biological nature of humans, just like hunger or sex. Carey, strongly believes that through biology and scientific research, romantic attraction is strictly because of human nature.  Carey states, “While lust makes our eye wander, they say, it’s the drive for romance that allows us to focus on one particular person” and this suggests that although having a very strong sexual desire from the things we physically see, which is   Eros love, makes us attracted to a person, it’s the authentic love, and many more factors than just sexual desire, that allow a person to prioritize just one person instead of having their eyes on multiple individuals (400). But yet again, it is human nature for one to be in any form, attracted to more than one person at once. Carey also explains how romance is the reason why “ we might travel cross-country for a single kiss, and plunge into blackest despair if our beloved turns away”, which implies that having a strong connection towards someone allows one to go to high extents and have very strong emotions towards the individual (400).  

            Carey believes that romantic attraction is a biologically based human drive, and he starts his essay of by explaining how “The neural mechanisms of romantic attraction are distinct from those of sexual attraction.” In this section of his essay, he describes a MRI research study from Bartels and Zeki, which compared brain scans from things like romantic love and sexual attraction. The study shows that the brain scans reflected many strong emotions all at once, that these young people were “practically willing to die for their lover” (Carey 401) The same concept is mentioned in Alexander Pushkin’s poem “I love You”, in which the poet loved the woman so much that he would’ve basically died for her. “I love you, and the feeling…May not quite be extinct within me yet” The poet, although can’t get his love back, wishes nothing but the best for the woman and her future love. He’s almost willing to die for his love. In this section, Carey brings up a strong idea, of how love almost obligates one to go to the extreme for those that one loves. I agree with this idea because if you strongly love someone, you’d do anything and everything to replicate that affection to them.

            “Some idealization may be crucial to building a longer-term relationship.” In this section of the essay, Carey explains how psychologists in their studies have proven how lovers idealize their partners. The lovers emphasize the others good qualities and explain their flaws (402). When it comes to idealizing one’s partner, many things must be taken into consideration, such as if the partner is just sexually attractive, mentally attractive, or just attractive in every category. This can either lead to a long term or short term relationship. In comparison, the “Nikolai Gogol’ Nevsky Prospect” novel, contains the protagonist Piskarev, who in contrast, idealizes a prostitute to be this beautiful and pure figure that he deeply loves. Piskarev describes her as “…loveliest brow, of a dazzling whiteness, was overshadowed by beautiful agate like hair”           ( Gogol 253) He considers the women to be graceful and pure, but this isn’t all true. Piskarev doesn’t know the woman on a personal level. Most of his views on the women are what he idealizes her to be. In term, his relationship with the woman had only last for a day. Additionally, this idea of idealizing a significant other corresponds well with this idea, “If you think of romantic attraction as a kind of drug that alters how you think, then in this case it’s allowing you to take some risks you wouldn’t otherwise” and this proves how attraction that is understood to be as something short term, like a drug, can lead to a short term relationship, and if it’s understood as a long term thing, then this would establish a long term relationship. I strongly agree with Carey in this section because when it comes to romantic attraction, idealization can be either a negative or positive aspect of someone’s concept of a relationship.

            Carey states that passionate romance, if labeled as a drug, can lose its kick overtime. Scientific studies have shown that couples who experience feelings of passionate love, tend to lose their feelings for each other in a year or two. Furthermore, having a strong romantic drive says nothing about how wisely or on who someone uses it on ( Carey 403) Carey says this, “But seeing romance as a biologically based, drug-like state can at least provide some balm for a broken heart”(403) and here, Carey suggests that biology and research play a huge role in understand romantic attraction and even love itself. Research can allow us to better understand how individuals feel towards their peers and how authentic their love is, and in that way, people won’t experience as many broken hearts. Overall, I agree with Carey’s ideas because humans tend to possess characteristics that are hard to understand. These characteristics are also unpredictable as well as intangible, and this is why science and research are needed to understand these natural human attributes. Science and love do go hand in hand in most ideas.

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Works Cited

Benedict Carey The Brain in Love

Gogolʹ, Nikolaĭ Vasilʹevich, and Carl R. Proffer. Letters of Nikolai Gogol. University of Michigan Press, 1967. 

Johnston, Charles, et al. Narrative Poems by Alexander Pushkin and by Mikhail Lermontov. Random House, 1983.