Psychology Today: Cupid's Comeuppance

"Dopamine and norepinephrine levels surge when a person is confronted by the unknown. In the initial phase of romantic love, they engender such exhilaration that we lose the desire to eat or sleep. The French refer to this as le coup de foudre ("lightning bolt"). Less romantic Anglophones call it lovesickness. Fisher, for her part, equates romantic love with addiction. She argues that whether the motivator is cocaine or Cindy in apartment 4B, elevated levels of dopamine and norepinephrine electrify the reward system in the brain. "Romantic love is an urge, a craving, a homeostatic imbalance that drives you to pursue a particular partner, and to [experience] emotions like elation and hope, or despair and rage," explains Fisher.
The awe of dopamine eventually subsides, followed by love's rear guard, vasopressin and oxytocin, hormones that lead to long-lasting attachment. Researchers hypothesize that these "cuddle chemicals," released during sex, facilitate the bond needed to raise children. Warm and fuzzy though they make us feel, these hormones can't match dopamine's edgy high. Oxytocin, in particular, may subdue levels of dopamine and norepinephrine."


Psychology Today: Cupid's Comeuppance