Emotional State

The feeling of falling in love or being in love are emotional state with neurobiological and biochemical correlates in the brain. ... Some have called oxytocin the "love hormone" because of its association with attachment and feelings of trust, safety, and protectiveness.

In short, love, at first sight, is translated by the thalamus as a "desired human chemical reaction", an important message which is then sent to the amygdala (the core memory center), resulting in the flooding of endorphins and other neurochemicals, such as oxytocin, vasopressin, and dopamine, in the emotional center of the brain, the “limbic system”. As such, according to Naumann’s findings, “the implication is that there is not just a single chemical reaction taking place in our bodies … there are a whole series of reactions that result in the emotion of love."

0:00

One of the first to explicitly state that love is a chemical process was Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung. In his 1933 book Modern Man in Search of a Soul, Jung stated: [5]

“The meeting of two personalities is like the contact of two chemical substances: if there is any reaction, both are transformed.”