Electrophysiological Correlates of Romantic Love: A Review of EEG and ERP Studies with Beloved-Related Stimuli

Abstract

Science is starting to unravel the neural basis of romantic love. The goal of this literature review was to identify and interpret the electrophysiological correlates of romantic love. Electroencephalography (EEG) and event-related potential (ERP) studies with a design that elicits romantic love feelings were included. The methods of previous EEG studies are too heterogeneous to draw conclusions. Multiple ERP studies, however, have shown that beloved stimuli elicit an enhanced late positive potential (LPP/P3/P300), which is not due to familiarity, positive valence, or objective beauty. This effect occurs in Western and Eastern cultures and for pictorial and verbal information, and results from bottom-up rather than top-down factors. Studies have also shown that beloved stimuli elicit an early posterior negativity (EPN), which also does not seem to be due to familiarity or positive valence. Data on earlier ERP components (P1, N1, P2, N170/VPP, N2) is scarce and mixed. Of course, the enhanced LPP and EPN are not specific to romantic love. Instead, they suggest that the beloved captures early attention, within 200–300 ms after stimulus onset that is relatively resource-independent, and subsequently receives sustained motivated attention. Future research would benefit from employing cognitive tasks and testing participants who are in love regardless of relationship status.

Neuroanatomy of romantic love

“…However, alpha frequency bands are high during relaxation and beta and gamma frequency bands are high during cognitive processing. 27 In a study on the effect of love emotion on face perception, the EEG recordings were taken by showing pictures of the loved person, appreciated friend, unfamiliar person and a blank page to people in a romantic love relationship (20 women). As a significant finding of the study, they observed that higher delta amplitude values (0.5-3 Hz) occurred on the frontal electrodes when the picture of the person they fell in love with was shown.…”

What’s love got to do with jealousy?

“…The study of love encompasses different perspectives from diverse disciplines, such as anthropology, genetics, biology, neurobiology, and psychology ( De Boer et al, 2012 ; Carter and Porges, 2013 ; Cacioppo and Cacioppo, 2015 ; Tobore, 2020 ; Langeslag, 2022 ). There is general agreement in describing love as a complex emotion, having multiple expressions ( Hatfield and Sprecher, 1986 ) and favoring long-term mating ( Sorokowski et al, 2017 ).…”