Romantic Love vs. Drug Addiction May Inspire a New Treatment for Addiction

Abstract

Drug addiction is a complex neurological dysfunction induced by recurring drug intoxication. Strategies to prevent and treat drug addiction constitute a topic of research interest. Early-stage romantic love is characterized by some characteristics of addiction, which gradually disappear as the love relationship progresses. Therefore, comparison of the concordance and discordance between romantic love and drug addiction may elucidate potential treatments for addiction. This focused review uses the evidences from our recent studies to compare the neural alterations between romantic love and drug addiction, moreover we also compare the behavioral and neurochemical alterations between romantic love and drug addiction. From the behavioral comparisons we find that there are many similarities between the early stage of romantic love and drug addiction, and this stage romantic love is considered as a behavioral addiction, while significant differences exist between the later stage of romantic love and drug addiction, and this stage of romantic love eventually developed into a prosocial behavior. The neuroimaging comparisons suggest that romantic love and drug addiction both display the functional enhancement in reward and emotion regulation network. Except the similar neural changes, romantic love display special function enhancement in social cognition network, while drug addiction display special dysfunction in cognitive control network. The neurochemical comparisons show that there are many similarities in the dopamine (DA) system, while significant differences in oxytocin (OT) system for romantic love and drug addiction. These findings indicate that the functional alterations in reward and emotion regulation network and the DA system may be the neurophysiological basis of romantic love as a behavioral addiction, and the functional alterations in social cognition network and the OT system may be the neurophysiological basis of romantic love as a prosocial behavior. It seems that the OT system is a critical factor for the development of addiction. So we then discuss strategies to treat drug addiction with OT, and suggest that future research should further investigate OT system interventions aiming to improve cognitive control and/or social cognition functions, in order to develop strategies designed to more effectively treat drug addiction.

Proximate and Ultimate Perspectives on Romantic Love

“…Much work has been done to examine romantic love as a biological characteristic. Numerous reviews have described the neurobiology and endocrinology of romantic love (e.g., Fisher, 2004Fisher, , 2006Zeki, 2007;Hatfield and Rapson, 2009;Reynaud et al, 2010;Cacioppo et al, 2012b;de Boer et al, 2012;Diamond and Dickenson, 2012;Dunbar, 2012;Tarlaci, 2012;Xu et al, 2015;Fisher et al, 2016;Zou et al, 2016;Tomlinson et al, 2018;Walum and Young, 2018;Cacioppo, 2019). Two meta-analyses (Ortigue et al, 2010;Cacioppo et al, 2012a) considered fMRI studies of romantic love.…”

“…As their relationship builds, the lover experiences the common signs of drug withdrawal, too, including protest, crying spells, lethargy, anxiety, insomnia, or hypersomnia, loss of appetite or binge eating, irritability and chronic loneliness." (Fisher et al, 2016, p. 2) A number of reviews have highlighted the behavioral and neurobiological similarities between addiction and romantic love (e.g., Reynaud et al, 2010;Fisher et al, 2016;Zou et al, 2016).…”

The Role of Oxytocin and Vasopressin in Attachment

“…The consequences of disrupted attachment may emerge as psychopathologies, including personality disorders (MacDonald, Berlow, & Thomas, 2013), vulnerability to drug abuse, and addictions (Buisman-Pijlman et al, 2014;Chambers & Wallingford, this issue;Zou, Song, Zhang, & Zhang, 2016). There is increasing evidence for genetic and epigenetic differences that may contribute to the capacity of individuals to cope with early life adversity (Bradley, Wingo, Davis, Mercer, & Ressler, 2013;Feldman, Monakhov, Pratt, & Ebstein, 2016;Myers et al, 2014;Rijlaarsdam et al, 2017;Smearman et al, 2016;Toepfer et al, 2017).…”

El amor romántico en los productos audiovisuales de ficción

“…Sin embargo, se encuentra en casi todos los participantes consciencia de la influencia de los medios en su percepción del amor. Un debate de gran importancia tratado en varios focus es si el amor se origina a partir de factores neuroquímicos y biológicos o por causas socioculturales, pudiendo vincularse esto con una de las investigaciones que relaciona los efectos químicos provocados por las drogas en el cerebro con los efectos que se dan durante el enamoramiento, como afirman Zou, et al (2016).…”