Can couples really sync? │ How Love Makes Us Human with Dr Anna Machin
Are those stories about flatmates’ syncing periods actually true?
Find out in what unexpected ways love makes us bond, and what biobehavioural synchrony is all about.
Anthropologist Anna Machin explains which aspects of love and attraction are hard-wired into our brains by nature, and why we can blame (some of) our misbehaviour in relationships on biology. She also gives us a glimpse of what the future of love might look like.
More on the science behind this video:
Dr Anna Machin’s website https://annamachin.com/
Dr Anna Machin’s blog https://annamachin.com/blog/
The Neurobiology of Human Attachments https://ruthfeldmanlab.com/wp-content...
The neuroanatomy of intimacy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuroan...
This series was produced with our partner Pint of Science! Find out more: www.pintofscience.com
You know those stories about flatmates' syncing periods?
Well, they're true.
Biology makes us bond in unexpected ways.
The biological bribery that motivates and rewards us for starting and maintaining relationships is a cocktail of neurochemicals released when we interact with those we love. But these do not act alone to bond a relationship, but are part of a suite of behaviours, physiological responses and neurochemical and neurological activity which underpin our love.
Israeli neuroscientist Ruth Feldman noticed something about the couples that came into her lab. And that was that they were in behavioural synchrony. When they talk to each other they would use the same gestures, the same language, the same tone. I'm sure you've noticed something like that with your friends who maybe are in relationships. But being a research scientist, she went a step further and she decided to explore what happens to a person physiologically when they are interacting with someone they love. So, she looked at their heart rates, their blood pressure and their body temperature, and she found that when they interact, these things come into synchrony too. But being a neuroscientist, she had to look in the brain. And she looked first at the neurochemical response to interacting, she checked their oxytocin levels. What she did was she got couples into her lab and separated them taking their baseline oxytocin levels. We all exist at different levels of oxytocin and the other neurochemicals. It's one of the reasons why we experience love in different ways. Having taken these, she got the couples back together and asked them to spend ten minutes talking about maybe a happy memory or an exciting plan for the future. She then separated them again and took their neurochemical oxytocin levels again. They had come into synchrony.
And this is something that we also see between parents and children. And beyond this neurochemical synchrony, we see synchrony in brain activity. So, for example if we put an EEG onto somebody's skull which measures the electrical signals that happen in the brain when it's active, we see synchrony in gamma waves between couples who are in a relationship. And these are particularly in the areas of the brain related to empathising, but also social comprehension. Why does this synchrony occur? It is because love is so essential to our survival and well-being that it has engaged every single fibre of our being. There are huge differences in the way we behave when we become attached to someone and they have a deep impact on our relationships.
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