William Shakespeare captured a profound truth in A Midsummer Night’s Dream when he wrote, “Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind.”
While Shakespeare’s reference may have been more philosophical than scientific, our modern understanding of “love” is very similar, in that contemporary research can identify where love can be found within our brains, despite the many forms it takes. From romantic love to parental love, each variant of what we call love exhibits distinct characteristics with relation to the context in which it is used.
For example, consider this statement: “You see your newborn child for the first time. The baby is soft, healthy, and a wondrous miracle. You feel love for this little one.” This describes parental love, one of many scenarios described in a recent study involving fifty-five participants who reported being in various kinds of loving relationships.
The study, conducted by researchers at Aalto University, relied on Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) to explore how different types of love activate the brain. “We now provide a more comprehensive picture of brain activity associated with different types of love than previous research,” says Pärttyli Rinne from the Department of Neuroscience and Biomedical Engineering at Aalto University.
The researchers used fMRI to capture brain activity as participants reflected on and emotionally engaged with six different types of love through vivid and expressive stories.
So, where exactly does love reside in the brain? “The activation pattern of love emerges in social situations within the basal ganglia, the midline of the forehead, the precuneus, and the temporoparietal junction at the sides of the back of the head,” Rinne explains. According to the National Library of Medicine, the basal ganglia is a cluster of nuclei deep in the brain’s neocortex, associated with reward and cognition, and primarily involved in motor control.
Rating Love
The study found that love for one’s child generated the most intense brain activity, with romantic love coming in as a close second. Given the study’s findings, it’s no surprise that many people consider the unconditional love from their child as one of the most profound experiences. “In parental love, there was activation deep in the brain’s reward system in the striatum area while imagining love, which was not observed for any other type of love,” notes Rinne.
Other types of love explored in the study included romantic partners, friendships, strangers, pets, and nature. Interestingly, the brain activity was influenced not only by the emotional closeness of the loved one but also by whether the object of affection was human, animal, or nature.
Unfortunately, the lowest levels of brain stimulation related to compassion and love were observed for strangers, indicating that empathy might need to be cultivated due to its lower reward rating. Remarkably, love for nature elicited more brain activation related to reward systems than compassion for strangers, although it did not engage the same social reward systems.
This low-level reward system for our caring attitudes toward strangers might explain why some people can walk past a homeless person without a second thought or speak carelessly to strangers. If our brains are wired to prioritize rewards from close relationships over compassion for strangers, it might explain why empathy often falls short for those we do not know, due to its lower reward status.
“This partly explains why we naturally care more about our nearest and dearest,” Rinne explains. “However, the similarity of brain areas involved in compassionate love for strangers and stronger forms of love suggests that it is very possible to care about the well-being of people we don’t know.
Rinne points to what is called the “offspring hypothesis” in research on altruism, which proposes that empathy-based altruism in social groups is something that likely evolved from parental care. “Our results help explain why religions and philosophical traditions, such as Christianity and Buddhism, refer to benevolence towards others as ‘neighborly love’ or ‘loving-kindness,’ even if it does not feel as intense as the love for close connections,” Rinne explained.
But what if the reward system were reversed? Imagine a world where the highest reward was associated with loving others rather than caring for our own children. Would we see a society overflowing with compassion but lacking in reproduction? Could this suggest that parental loving is ranked highest to ensure the survival of the human race?
Rinne adds, “I don’t have a definite data-based answer. However, if you have warm feelings towards people you don’t know and are prone to be benevolent and compassionate, does that make you less likely to reproduce? My conjecture is that the opposite might be true. Sarah Hrdy’s book Mothers and Others and Brian Hare and Vanessa Woods’ concept of ‘survival of the friendliest’ come to mind.”
“While parental love is highly adaptive, as lack of parental nurturance leads to increased infant mortality, feeling compassionate love for strangers likely does not conflict with parental love,” Rinne explained, adding that people learning to be more compassionate toward strangers could help them become more loving parents.
“Our results might help explain why religions and philosophical traditions like Christianity and Buddhism refer to benevolence towards others as ‘neighborly love’ or ‘loving-kindness,’ even if these types of love do not feel as intense as love for close connections,” Rinne said.
However, researchers were surprised to find that the brain areas involved in loving other people (romantic relationships or friendships) were quite similar, with the main difference being the intensity of activation. Loving others in any form lit up brain regions related to understanding social interactions, unlike caring for pets or nature, which did not activate these areas—except in one specific case.
Brain Activity and Pet Ownership
For pet owners, the study’s findings might not be surprising. Participants’ brain responses to statements like the following revealed whether they lived with a pet.
“When it comes to love for pets, there was an interesting difference between pet owners and non-pet owners,” says Rinne. “Love for pets activated social brain regions significantly more in pet owners than in participants without pets. It appears that the love pet owners feel for their pets is neurally more similar to interpersonal love than the love non-pet owners feel for pets. In other words, for pet owners, non-human pets are neurologically closer to people or other human beings.”
How the Study Worked
The study compared brain activations related to loving emotions with those related to everyday, neutral moments—like gazing out of a bus window or brushing your teeth. After listening to a professional actor narrate each “love story,” participants were asked to immerse themselves in that emotion for ten seconds, imagining it as vividly as possible.
This isn’t Rinne and his team’s first foray into this area of research. His colleagues Juha Lahnakoski, Heini Saarimäki, Mikke Tavast, Mikko Sams, and Linda Henriksson have been investigating human emotions for years, and in 2023, they released a study mapping how we physically experience loving emotions, revealing that the most intense sensations are closely linked to personal relationships.
Their work aims to spark deeper conversations about consciousness and connection, and to use their findings to improve mental health treatments, particularly for those struggling with attachment issues, depression, or relationship challenges. Ultimately, understanding how our brains process these emotions can help us navigate relationships and improve overall mental health.
Rinne adds, “Our research supports the emerging consensus that positive emotions in close relationships are crucial for human well-being. While our study is curiosity-driven and not specifically aimed at clinical applications, it provides novel insights into the brain areas involved in highly rewarding experiences of love in interpersonal relationships.”
Looking to the future, Rinne hopes their results could be used in targeted therapeutic interventions, such as neuromodulation or cognitive behavioral therapies, to improve emotional regulation and resilience in individuals with disorders like anxiety or depression.
“However, this is our hope, and it is ultimately up to clinicians to evaluate the usefulness of our work for such applications,” Rinne concludes.
Chrissy Newton is a PR professional and founder of VOCAB Communications. She currently appears on The Discovery Channel and Max and hosts the Rebelliously Curious podcast, which can be found on The Debrief’s YouTube Channel on all audio podcast streaming platforms. Follow her on X: @ChrissyNewton and at chrissynewton.com.