ArticleAdvances in experimental medicine and biology2021
The Science of Love: State of the Art.
Article in Advances in experimental medicine and biology, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 8 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
8 citing papers in PubMed.
- The neurobiology of love and addiction: Central nervous system signaling and energy metabolism.Cognitive, affective & behavioral neuroscience · 2025Review
- Does a microbial-endocrine interplay shape love-associated emotions in humans? A hypothesis.mSystems · 2025Review
- Love is expensive: the impact of initiating versus terminating romantic relationships on the onset of obsessive-compulsive disorder.CNS spectrums · 2025Article
- Corrigendum: Romantic love evolved by co-opting mother-infant bonding.Frontiers in psychology · 2024Article
- A long and winding road: My personal journey to oxytocin with no return.Comprehensive psychoneuroendocrinology · 2023Review
- Review
- Romantic love evolved by co-opting mother-infant bonding.Frontiers in psychology · 2023Article
- Oxytocin and love: Myths, metaphors and mysteries.Comprehensive psychoneuroendocrinology · 2022Review
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
3 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
In these last decades, emotions and feelings, neglected for centuries by experimental sciences, have become the topic of extensive neuroscientific research. Currently, love, the most typically human feeling, can be viewed as the result of different phases (steps), each regulated by evolutionary well-conserved and integrated neural substrates. We have proposed that the early stage, generally called romantic love, is the result of the activation of the brain limbic structures regulating fear/anxiety reactions leading to changes of major neurotransmitters, such as increased monoamine levels and decreased serotonin concentrations. The second stage of love is mainly underlain by the structures regulating the attachment system and involving oxytocin and vasopressin neuropeptides and neurotrophins. This would explain why the positive effects of love can be extremely beneficial for both mental and physical health.However, available data are still limited, and the proposed models, although supported by converging data, should be considered speculative and oversimplified. The hope is that neuroscience will permit to shed light on love, one of the most intriguing, and still largely unknown mysteries of human nature.
Indexed as
Identifiers
34453303What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.