English 2A
06/01/13
Helen Fisher has brought the idea of love to the public . She has been proving on the her hypothesis, that love has to do with three chemicals in our brain, dopamine, norepinephrine and serotonin. Fisher thinks that these chemicals play a role in a human’s liking towards another human. Part of her hypothesis states that she thinks that when in love, the non-stop (in the lines of obsessive) thinking towards the significant other is due to the fact that the chemicals in the brain begin to react differently at the sight of the lover. Fisher wanted to try theory, she had found a way to collect the data of ones’ brain activity while in love. Looking at the brain activity can help her determine if it is truly related to the three chemicals.
There were some requirements necessary to find the test persons she was going to use. Fisher was using MRI scans to read the person’s brain activity to collect the data. She ruled out any persons with metal on their person (such as braces or jewelry) to prevent it messing with the data due to the metal affecting the machine. She then needed to talk with the people who felt that they were in love so she could see if they really had a passion for the other. If she felt there was a person that did show the signs of true passion she would then invite them to participate in the experiment. Once all of the volunteers were gathered she took two pictures of them, one of the person in love and the other of the “emotionally neutral individual”. Then Fisher began the brain scanning part of the experiment. Fisher states that this was the most difficult part of the experiment. The person was given pre-scans in order for Fisher to receive the basic brain anatomy of the person. Then after the person look at an image of the loved one then scan the brain another time. Then showed the person two large numbers and