The brain in love.

15 de febrero, resaca post- San Valentín. Un buen momento para poner un poco de cabeza a todo este asunto del amor.


"Romantic love is an addiction: a perfectly wonderful addiction when it’s going well, and a perfectly horrible addiction when it’s going poorly.” 


Why do we crave love so much, even to the point that we would die for it?
In this talk, Helen Fisher and her research team took MRIs of people in love and people who had just been dumped and share her conclusions.


Anthropologist Helen Fisher studies gender differences and the evolution of human emotions. She's best known as an expert on romantic love, our most treasured emotion.





-To be madly in love: estar locamente enamorado.
- To be dumped: ser dejado.
- To be rejected: Ser rechazado


- To face: 
1. encarar (en sentido figurado).
i.e: To face a problem
2. de cara a
i.e: The room faces the beach.


- To pine for something: sufrir/ suspirar por algo.
(Pine away: Languidecer, consumirse de añoranza).


- I would stake all for you: Me jugaría todo lo que tengo por ti.


- Surpass: superar/ To be surpassed: ser superado.


- To be torn: estar desgarrado, hecho polvo.


- My body is numb (entumecido) with grief (dolor emocional)


- Parting is all we need to know of hell: Despedida, es todo lo que hemos de saber de el infierno.


- How many people around the world are dancing with elation (euforia, júbilo) at this very minute?


- Madness: locura.


- It's part of what we call the reptilian core of the brain, associated with wanting (el deseo), with motivation (la motivación), with focus ( centarse)  and with craving (ansia). 


- To crave (for) something: Tener ansia de algo, físico (a food crave) o algo inmaterial (She craves love).


- When you feel the rush of cocaine: cuando sientes el subidón de cocaína.


- But romantic love is much more than a cocaine high, at least you come down from cocaine: El amor romántico es mucho más que un colocón de cocaína, al menos el efecto de la cocaína se pasa.


- Romantic love is an obsession. It possesses you. You lose your sense of self. 


- But no, you just love them harder: pero no es así, al revés, le quieres más.


- The less my hope, the hotter my love: Cuanta menos esperanza tengo, mayor es mi amor.


- An appropriate mating partner: una pareja de apareamiento adecuada.


- Gains and losses: ganancias y pérdidas.


- Willing to take enormous risks: deseoso de asumir enormes riesgos.


- Attachment: apego.
- To feel attached: sentirse apegado.


- No wonder (con razón) people suffer around the world, and we have so many crimes of passion. 


- When you've been rejected in love, not only are you engulfed with (envuelto con) feelings of romantic love


- Foremost (lo primero, más importante, destacado), I have come to think (he llagado a pensar, he consluído) that romantic love is a drive (impulso, instinto).


- To distort reality: distorsionar la realidad. 


- Withdrawals: retirada, renuncia.
- Relapse: recaída.


- She had to pull over from the side of the road: tuvo que aparacar a un lado de la carretera.


- Too scruffy: desaliñado, dejado.


- To be picky: quisquilloso (eligiendo).


- People have often asked me whether what I know about love has spoiled it for me: La gente me ha preguntado a menudo si lo que sé sobre el amor, me lo ha fastidiado/ estropedo.


- There's one thing that makes me pursue (perseguir) my understanding of human nature, 


- So my final statement (afirmación) is: love is in us. It's deeply embedded in the brain. Our challenge is to understand each other.




"The god of love lives in a state of need. It is a need. It is an urge. It is a homeostatic imbalance (desequilibrio). Like hunger (hambre) and thirst(sed), it's almost impossible to stamp out (con el que es imposible acabar, sofocar, controlar)", Plato.