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; Come Together, Right Now
; State Focus
Love: A Matter
Of Chemistry?
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; Lessons From Astor
As the son of socialite Brooke Astor faces charges connected to the
oversight of his mother’s estate, Meryl
Gordon, author of Mrs. Astor Regrets,
sheds some light on the infamous case.
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People looking for love could one day find romance with the help of a drug that acts
on the brain, says Larry J. Young, professor of
neuroscience at Atlanta’s Emory University. ; Love as chemicals isn’t an
enticing thought. But Young, writing in the Jan. 8 Nature, says brain hormones produce a warm feeling when released during bonding activities
like breastfeeding and sex and could form the basis of a “pharmaceutical
‘love potion.’ ” ; So is a love pill plausible? “Sure,” says Louis Cozolino,
professor of psychology at Pepperdine University in California. It’s possible that a drug could be developed to “make people have the impulse
and the desire to move closer to one another.” But, he adds, “you have
to be careful how you define love.” Cozolino also says more research is
needed on a love drug’s effects on humans. ; So far, Young’s studies
on altering brain chemistry have used prairie voles, one of the very few
animals to form long-term monogamous pairs.—Katharine Greider
