Today's Article

CNN Anchor: Helen Fisher is a biological 4anthropologist who studies romantic love and attachment and how it affects the brain, not only when you fall in love, but also when you fall out of it. 

Dr. Helen Fisher: Nobody gets out of love alive. We all suffer when we've been 5rejected. When I and my colleagues put 17 people who had just been rejected in love, we found about six or seven things that happen in the brain of everybody. 

A 6brain region 7linked with feelings of romantic love remain active. You don't fall out of love with somebody just because they dumped you. As a matter of fact, you can even love them more. A brain region linked with feelings of deep attachment become active. You're still feeling attached to the person. 

A brain region linked with 8physical pain becomes active when you've been rejected. And then there's three brain regions linked with 9cravingand 10addiction, 11particularly a particular little factory called the 12nucleus accumbens. And that factory becomes active with any kind of addiction, like gambling addiction, food addiction. And it's a brain region that becomes active as well when you have been rejected in love. I do think that romantic love is an addiction. 

It can be a perfectly wonderful addiction when it's going well and a perfectly horrible addiction when it's going poorly. Basically, we suffer because from 13ancient times this 14jeopardized your ability to send your DNA on into tomorrow and that's your survival. No wonder we suffer so much. 

CNN Anchor: But it's not all pain and suffering. There is one thing Fisher noticed that helps 15ease the feelings of heartbreak and rejection. 

Dr. Helen Fisher: The longer from that moment of rejection with more and more time, you see less and less activity in brain regions linked with attachment. We've been able to prove that time does heal.