Seduction, Stalking, and Love...
The Differences & Similarities
Kevin Hogan
Page 5
What else can we learn?
Brown noted that "an important concept is that the caudate probably integrates huge amounts of information, everything from early personal memories to one's personal notions of beauty. Then, this brain region (and related regions of the basal ganglia) helps to direct one's actions toward attaining one's goals. For neuroscientists," she said, "these findings about the diverse regional functions of the basal ganglia in humans have remarkable implications."
Now, for those of you familiar with my work about nonverbal communication and how to position people when you communicate with them....you're going to find this intensely exciting. For those of you unaware of my early research here, pick up The Body Language Home Study Course.
A Surprise Discovery
Another important discovery, Brown said, was that "to our surprise, intense romantic love were mostly on the right side of the brain, while the activation regions associated with facial attractiveness were mostly on the left.
Remember also from my work and other neuroscientists, we've found that there's a lot more on the right side. The emotions. Especially negative emotions of anger, sadness, contempt, grief....Think about the ramifications as those emotions sit in the same chair as ROMANTIC LOVE. Mix negative emotions and romantic love, and you can get some PRETTY BAD and SCARY scripts. Remember, we're not talking about sex here. We're talking about addiction and motivation to get reward in the same car with ANGER, FEAR, GRIEF. What does that equal? Right.... criminal court in bad cases....
"We didn't predict such a striking lateralization," Brown reported. "It is well known that speech is largely a left-sided cortical function. But our data indicate that lateralization also occurs in lower parts of the brain. Moreover, different kinds of rewards (in this case, the "rush" of romantic love, compared with the pleasing experience of looking at a pretty or handsome face) is also lateralized. These results give us a lot to think about how the normal human brain learns and remembers and functions in general," Brown added.
