Introduction to translation
Poets and novelists have always written about love and its sweetness and about separation and its sweetness in thousands of verses and millions of lines in long and short novels.
But - believe it or not - what science says about the pain of separation and what goes on in our brains through it, makes the verses of poetry and the lines of the novel look like a relief from reality!
In this article, American writer and journalist Florence Williams discusses separation from a neuroscience point of view, and how our brain is in a state of heart failure.
translation material
It is no secret to anyone that when good relationships are based on true love, the goodness of their impact overwhelms all aspects of life, as confirmed by research.
The more healthy and supportive emotional relationships are, the better it will be for our mental and physical health.
Some other research has concluded that married people have a longer life expectancy than singles, so that the severity of the disease may be less severe for married couples, given that the presence of a supporter encourages them to move forward towards a faster improvement than their single peers.
On the other hand, poetry and singing from antiquity contained one fact that no doubt could touch upon, which is that when matters of love deteriorate and bring us to the bottom of grief, their abuse is unresolved, and its pain is no match for it.
Having experienced a divorce that was not of my own choosing, I found Salway in art, but it was not enough to quell the burning fire in me.
I was looking for something stronger that could explain why we feel deep sadness after experiences of emotional separation, and I finally found science.
What I discovered is that love is so deeply rooted - on a physiological level - that it changes us so deeply that the more we progress, the more pain takes hold of us, and the more we penetrate, the more brutal the pain, and makes us make sure that not getting involved in love is much easier than wading through it without its consequences. .
Helen Fisher, author of “The Anatomy of Love: The Natural History of Mating,” and an anthropologist who studies the neurochemistry of love as a researcher at the Kinsey Institute at Indiana University in the United States says, “One of humanity’s most painful experiences is losing a life partner. This loss leaves him behind, yet it has not attracted the attention of many studies on it.”
Nothing is more heartbreaking than a broken heart, but Fischer believes that many scientists have underestimated the topic of emotional separation, while exploring the state of humankind when they fall in love obsessed them as a more attractive idea.
Even Fischer herself took this approach for so long that she became increasingly interested in the other side of the story;
The part of the separation that she experienced herself, as well as many people.
In 2010, Helen Fisher and her colleagues published a paper in Neurophysiology outlining the results of an experiment in which they used fMRI to monitor the brain activity of 15 people who had experienced a forced breakup and were still passionate about their ex-partners.
During the experiment, these participants were shown pictures of their ex-partners and normal pictures of familiar people.
Once they saw the pictures of their ex-partners, the scans showed activity in many areas of the brain that normally activate when a person is immersed in a state of love.
In her divorce memoirs, titled "The Consequences of Post-Marriage and Separation", British novelist Rachel Kosik says: "Sadness is nothing but a method similar to love, marked by cruelty and in whose presence there is no meaning of a good night's sleep."
During the experiment, scans showed activity in several brain regions associated with craving and emotional regulation, such as the ventral tegmental area (VTA), ventral striatum (a group of subcortical structures thought to play an important role in emotion and behavior), as well as the cingulate gyrus (which is The anterior cingulate cortex plays almost the same role.
These active regions play a very effective role in fueling feelings of love in the early stages of it, in addition to forming parts of the stimulating system in the brain, which works by releasing the neurotransmitter dopamine, which is one of the vectors associated with drug addiction (cocaine).
Parting stages
We may imagine that love, even if it is an addiction, is certainly something that works in our favor as long as it motivates us to be attracted to each other, but this is valid in only one case, which is moving forward in a mutual love, as for the love that we expend for the sake of the other party without having it as much. It is love itself, as its negative effects soon become apparent on our physical health.
Sometimes we prioritize our brains thinking about our ex in the same way it deals with physical pain, as Fisher's team noted.
In addition to increased activity in parts of the brain associated with craving and addiction, other parts of the insular cortex and anterior cingulate cortex also showed activity during MRI, and these parts are responsible for physical pain.
Fisher also notes that these areas become more active when a person suffers toothache, but the difference here is that the pain of separation may last for a long time, so we think that it will last forever without leaving us.
During the study, all participants admitted that thinking about their ex became so imaginative that it drained more than 85% of their waking hours, as well as their failure to control their emotions from the early stages of their breakup.
The researchers confirmed that this condition applies to everyone without exception, and it may take weeks or even months as a result of our senses being disturbed and we plunged into a fever-like whirlpool after we ran frantically towards our partners.
At some point, we may be obsessed with the idea of suicide, and this is what a research paper found when it discovered that emotional separation is one of the most dangerous factors that may fuel suicide desire among adolescents in the United States.
Another study concerned with the causes of suicide among adults revealed that among the most common causes that may lead to suicide, such as deteriorating physical health, facing financial crises, or exposure to expulsion, emotional crises alone constituted 27% of the total reasons that may motivate suicide.
Fischer explained that there are two basic neurological phases that everyone who has experienced a recent breakup must go through: initially protesting, and finally accepting or accepting.
In the first stage, many desperately try to get their ex-partners back by whatever means, and Fisher believes that this behavior stems from the brain producing too much dopamine and noradrenaline as a result of head-to-toe terror and making you desperately search for what you've lost.
In the first months of separation, a person has a feeling that there is a loudspeaker blaring in his head relentlessly, and this is called - according to Fisher - hypervigilance (or feeling very stimulated and cautious), and this state is a natural response to the threat that a person possesses after the separation, This explains why individuals who have experienced a forced breakup suffer from persistent insomnia, weight loss, and disorientation in general.
In the stage of acceptance, people realize that there is no way to surrender, and as a result, all the shields of protests fall, and their desperate attempts at bargaining are extinguished.
During this phase, the body's level of dopamine and serotonin (neurotransmitters important for regulating mood, sleep, appetite, well-being and psychological well-being) decline.
As soon as one realizes that he has reached the stage of delivery, he is possessed by apathy and lethargy, as well as the effort he incurs in the face of many tears.
This stage is famous for that people in it do not stop resorting to things that go to their mind sometimes, and at other times they find solace in driving at high speed or in seclusion at home in front of the TV.
And between sadness and pain, the idea of separation may spring up in the minds of others like a torrential flood, consuming their thoughts until their last breath in an endless cycle of exhausting questions.
We need not stress, of course, that all these defenses are far from any healthy habits.
Recently, scientists were able to discover the neural mechanism behind the behavioral and psychological effects of this matter.
Among them was Zoe Donaldson, a behavioral neuroscientist interested in tracing the effect of emotional disconnection and the pain it causes on our brains.
And because she aspires to test this very accurately at the level of neurons, she chose prairie mice as a good aid in experiments that are difficult to apply to humans, as experiments require implanting tiny microscopes inside their heads.
Rat cesspit!
It is true that in the world of mice there is no such thing as divorce, but that does not mean that they do not experience the experiences of loss and separation.
Although some prairie mice prefer a little orgy with a lot of relationships, most are monogamous (they are content with one life partner with whom they stay with them throughout life in a stable atmosphere and raise the young), and they are even more loyal than us on this point.
Once prairie mice find and bond with their partner, 75% of them decide to continue their lives with this partner until one of them dies, even if the female does not give birth, it does not affect their relationship.
(Comparing this to humans, for example, more than 30% of adults over the age of 20 in the United States have already experienced divorce, not to mention relationships that did not culminate in marriage in the first place.)
Prairie mice are caring and loyal creatures to their partners and young, and males support and comfort their wives in times of adversity.
The researchers noted that in the early days of the experiment, after getting to know each other and mating, the mice all tended to spend time with their partners, unconcerned with any sweet temptations.
During the experiment, mice were placed in carefully lined polycarbonate boxes that were thin and dark on the inside.
Mice spent most of their time playing in and out of plastic pipes, sometimes hanging on to high pipes, and sometimes fiddling with piles of wood.
About half of these mice were monogamous, while the other half were closely related field mice.
But the essential difference here is that voles, by their nature, are never satisfied with one partner.
If this diversity in the family tree is useful, it is undoubtedly a great boon for scholars like Donaldson.
With a simple comparison of these two groups, whose brain structures and neurochemical mechanisms are not very different, scientists can identify the unique molecules responsible for the behavioral and psychological effects of pairing up with their partners.
At the beginning of the experiment, each mouse was able to find its partner, and on the basis of this, all marriages were arranged.
Donaldson grouped unrelated adult male and female prairie mice in one cage to allow for the opportunity to get close to each other, and once the courtship and touching processes began, the hormone oxytocin exploded inside the brains of both spouses (this hormone is mainly responsible for feelings of love, satisfaction, trust and reward centers in the brain).
After that, it comes to a degree of depth so that if the two partners are married, there is never room for separation, and their only goal becomes to remain attached to each other throughout the day.
The experience takes us to another level, which is forced separation.
At this point, the mice are in the process of confronting their unknown fate, about which they do not know anything and take control of several experiments.
In one experiment, rats learn how to press a handle (or lever) to raise a door and receive a reward of plates of delicious food.
As soon as the mice realize, after a short period of separation from their partner, that the latter is waiting behind the door, they eagerly rush to the handle in an attempt to pressure it to lift the door and meet it again.
But things do not continue to be that simple, not everything one wishes to realize.
And that is what the mice experienced after Donaldson made the experiment more difficult, making it impossible for the mice to lift the door with one press of the handle, but rather they had to make several pressures, sometimes up to four attempts.
Then Donaldson decided in the next stage to tighten the noose more on the mice by hiding their partner from behind the door once and for all, to calm their frantic running, and to submit them to the stage of acceptance or surrender so that if he prevented the creature from his goal, he must not be eliminated by death.
As we can see from experience, Donaldson's focus has been on a major component of grief, which is lust or longing, as indirect evidence of acceptance of the inevitable loss of that partner.
All of this raises questions about how long it takes mice to meet their mates, or the time it takes to come to terms with the reality of losing their partner, but Donaldson and her colleagues are still collecting data to provide accurate and satisfactory answers.
However, these answers will likely differ from one mouse to another, as one held the handle for about three hours, until one of Donaldson's colleagues gave up and ended the experiment.
In light of these experiments, the most important question remains: What happens inside the brains of mice when decisions are made to separate them from their partners?
To find out what was going on in her head, Donaldson implanted sensors into the nucleus accumbens of prairie mice (an important brain region responsible for rewards in the human brain, which activates when people receive food, money or praise, and is linked to emotional learning to manage emotions and is linked to addiction as well).
dopamine mess
The nucleus accumbens is like a spongy piece capable of absorbing the hormones oxytocin and dopamine, which are released during mating or approaching.
Once the nucleus accumbens is activated, the level of dopamine in it rises, and it turns out that it is a hormone that encodes good memories associated with reward, prompting the mice to experience such a pleasurable experience again.
It also turns out that this region is one of the main factors that reveal the difference between prairie voles and their polyamorous relatives of voles.
What is really interesting is that field mice do not have many oxytocin-receiving cells in this region, while at the same time humans show high activity in this region, especially those with recent detachment.
Another MRI study revealed the unusual activity of the nucleus accumbens - particularly in the brains of people who suffer from deep sadness - just by viewing pictures of their ex-partners.
Love relationships are based primarily on strong feelings associated with memories, but that does not mean that voles are less enjoying bonding and mating than prairie voles, but the difference here is that their memories with their partners do not carry the same poetic tone, because their brains are not prepared in the first place to receive the responsible chemical signals about it.
Sadness caused by emotional separation often accompanies feelings of stress and depression, as well as yearning and longing for the other person.
Despite the difficulty of studying these feelings on all creatures, some scientists decided to study them through prairie mice, including "Oliver Bush", a former colleague of Donaldson.
Bush decided to isolate half of these mice from their mates, then group the male mice with some of their siblings and quickly separate them again.
Bush then decided to subject the males to various ordeals, for example dropping them into a steep cylinder filled with cold water (the forced swimming test), or hanging them by their tails by attaching them with duct tape to an aluminum stick suspended inside a black box (the forced swimming test). hanging tail), or placing them in front of the four arms of a high maze shaped as junctions to assess their behavioral responses. Will the mice unleash themselves and launch into open passages with their exploratory nature, or will they retreat into closed passages?
The study concluded that the rats that were forcibly separated from their partners made less effort to save themselves from drowning or get out of the black box, and seemed to be lacking in passion and resigned to the status quo, unlike their lucky companions who were not separated from their partners.
Scientists call this phenomenon of apathy and apathy "negative coping", while many believe that this condition is similar to depression, but this belief is still somewhat controversial.
Over time, the study authors noticed disturbing behaviors in both sexes while in the maze.
In light of similar research, mice that went through a recent separation stage showed similar symptoms, preferring to spend less time in open corridors and withdrawing more time in closed lanes (though their behaviors are more anxious).
The change was not limited to the behavior of the mice only, but also extended to their neurochemical mechanisms as well, and as a result, levels of corticosterone rose in their blood, the hormone responsible for stress in mice.
But when separated from her other male peers, she did not show any of the previous symptoms (which means that the apparent symptoms occurred precisely as a result of separation from the lover or life partner, and not as a result of social isolation).
It was also found that the size of the adrenal glands responsible for releasing these hormones increased in the stressed mice, but their extreme stress was reflected in their behavior in the tests.
When Bush and his team decided to take the experiment to the next level by giving the mice drugs to block the secretion of adrenocorticotropic hormone (ADH), they no longer showed symptoms of depression, and went on an effort similar to those of their happy companions.
way back
Surprisingly and truly reflective of these experiences are the pathways that all rats' brains took regardless of their status with their partners, whether they experienced a separation or not.
Bush's experiment revealed that the brains of all mice produced more than one stress-generating mechanism, unlike mice that did not participate in the experiment and did not meet or separate from mates.
This finding surprised Bush and his team at first, but they later realized that these mechanisms were not really stress-generating in lover mice, but rather a quick defensive ploy against the heartbreaking pain of a breakup.
As painful and draining as a breakup is, we can still come to terms with it and the tragedy deep inside us with this ploy of calling our ex-partners a short time after we break up, or our constant desire to get back to them.
Our nature requires us to accept the negative consequences of love as we accept love itself.
This reminds us of the words of the French philosopher Paul Virilio that building a ship and accepting its wreck at any moment are two sides of the same coin, or in the words of Helen Fisher: “No one escapes the bitterness of love.”
As cruel and horrific as it may sound, we can find comfort in it.
Pain is not created like this alone without obvious reasons, although its intensity may sometimes suggest that to us, but you will always find reasons that justify what is happening with you.
In the end, we realize that attachment or love - or you name it - is rooted in our depths and changes us, and adapts our brains in ways that increase our sensitivity to joys and afflictions, giving us a feeling that there is something in our possession that can be lost at any time.
So falling in love is like standing helplessly before a gun pointed at you.
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This article was translated from The Atlantic and does not necessarily reflect the Meydan website.
Translation: Somaya Zaher.