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Scientists have been able to determine the difference between love and lust
Last reviewed: 01.07.2025
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For the first time in history, scientists have managed to determine the difference between love and lust at the neurological level. It turns out that these feelings affect different areas of the brain.
Researchers from Canada's Concordia University conducted 20 different experiments that determined that love and lust activate different areas of the striatum. Lust affects the area responsible for pleasure, while love activates the area that determines the meaning of pleasure.
During the experiment, volunteers were shown either erotic pictures of men and women to arouse desire, or pictures of their lovers. All this helped to derive a scientific formula for love.
It turns out that the striatum is activated during the emergence of both emotions. But while lust activates the area that is also responsible for the reaction to tasty food (i.e. pure pleasure), love activates another part. Science believes that it is responsible for the evaluation of those things that we love. That is, a person not only experiences physical attraction to someone, but also understands how much this person means to him. Which is love.
However, love cannot be called a "pure" feeling from a scientific point of view. The part of the striatum responsible for love is also responsible for the formation of drug addiction, as reported in the Journal of Sexual Medicine. Now it becomes clear why love is so often called a drug.
According to the authors of the study, love is a habit that is formed when sexual attraction is rethought and given special value. In other words, a great feeling arises when the object of our sexual desires becomes dear to us not only as a potential sexual partner. This is the modern formula of love.
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