Why women have sex on the brain
BY NIGEL HAWKES
Scientific study has answered the question of why we fall in love in the most unromantic way possible
THE question that has perhaps most obsessed and mystified the poets, philosophers and thinkers - why do we fall in love? - has been answered in the most unromantic way possible: by the scientific study of the humble prairie vole. Music was the food of love in Shakespeare's book, but the truth, according to Professor Gareth Leng of the University of Edinburgh, lies in a "love potion" created in women's brains after the act of sex, which helps her to form a bond with her partner.
Professor Leng, speaking to the British Association Science Festival in Glasgow yesterday, said that it is all in the chemistry because of evidence gleaned from the vole, which engages in enormous bouts of sexual intercourse, far in excess of that needed for reproduction.
"If you were to spend (many hours in) intense sexual activity with a partner, something fundamental might happen to your behaviour," he said. "That's often what you see in animals. Many animals bond for life. It's not going to surprise anybody to think something fundamental is happening in the brain."
Oxytocin, produced by the pituitary gland in the brain, is probably also involved in creating the bond between mother and child at birth and during breast-feeding. In prairie voles, a monogamous species, the effect is especially strong.
"If you put a male and female prairie vole into a cage, but don't allow them to mate, they seem to form a kind of friendship. But if you inject oxytocin into the female's brain, she will form this sexual bond."
Professor Leng said: "We're talking about 24 hours of constant copulation." Translated to human behaviour, he said, this could mean that the more sex a couple have, the deeper their bond becomes, at least on the woman's side.
"So how does a brain fall in love? My answer, perhaps, like yours, would be: a time, a place, a pair of eyes."