Download Emotional, behavioral and cognitive mechanisms in rehabilitation of

Basic Research Journal of Medicine and Clinical Sciences ISSN 2315-6864 Vol. 2(9) pp. 94-102 November 2013
Available online http//www.basicresearchjournals.org
Copyright ©2013 Basic Research Journal
Review
Emotional, behavioral and cognitive mechanisms in
rehabilitation of romantic love neuro-cognitive process
Zarghi A*1, Zali A1, Ashrafi F1, Moazezi S1
Neuroscience Departments, Functional Neurosurgery Research Center, Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences
*Corresponding author email: [email protected]
Accepted 25 November, 2013
Neuro-cognitive assessment of romantic love is confined. The identifying theories and mechanisms
involved in these complex feelings helps to better understanding of its neurobiology. The aim of this
study is to investigate systemic emotional, behavioral, and cognitive mechanisms in rehabilitation of
romantic love neuro-cognitive processes. It is not surprising that activities occur in brain areas which
are also active in other emotional states but stimulated activity pattern is unique here. While expression
and experience of love is very broad and different, its study can easily be far from the advantage of
effective and powerful magnifier which researchers provide. Multi-dimensional nature of this feeling
forces researchers to use always theorizing and research methods and combine different levels of
analysis in a way that pay attention to fundamental aspects of love from personal perspectives and so
utilize greater integration of multiple disciplines for assessing this feeling. Previous studies indicate
that scientific investment should be in a right direction to develop understanding toward this
outstanding individual phenomenon and it can be used as a solution in emotion rehabilitation.
Keywords: rehabilitation, romantic love, emotional, behavioral and cognitive mechanisms
INTRODUCTION
Cognitive rehabilitation therapy (CRT), a group of
designed techniques used for the expansion of cognitive
domains. CRT is the science of restoring cognitive
processing and learning compensatory strategies which
affects the molecular and cellular recovery by integration
of behavioral and cognitive changes. The promotion of
rehabilitation science of cognitive neurosciences has
made it a priority in a full range of effected interventional
procedures. It is possible to achieve the desired goals in
the chain of theoretical and experimental sciences on the
basis of behavioral interventions which is made of
cognitive
neuroscience,
psychology,
physiology,
pharmacology, medical imaging, and other medical
disciplines. Cognitive impairment is a huge health
challenge. Our approach to CRT is based on the
assumption that treatment would be the most effective
way when focusing on the cognitive sub-systems and
these are also affected by other aspects of life as a
patient emotions, nutrition, health, stress, and social
performance. Intervention in the passive skills can lead to
neuro-cognitive rehabilitation that includes designed
experience on the basis of nerve, brain function and
structure. A failure of cognitive or brain processing is a
disorder. Nerve reconstruction in CRT is done through
neuroplastisity, reorganization of damaged cortex,
morphological and physiological responses. This method
is the ability to change the neuro-cognitive processes
used as a factor in emotional rehabilitation. Romantic
love, a complex feeling including cognitive, emotional and
behavioral components is one of the most powerful
emotional states known, which was the inspiration of
some great human achievements (Fisher, 1998), (Bartels
and Zeki, 2000), (Panksepp, 1998). The main
characteristic of love is paying attention to one person
Zarghi et al. 95
and visual input has the most important role in romantic
love persistence and vigilance.
There are so many ways to study love which are not
surprising due to its multi-dimensional structure. It seems
there is a missing piece in the middle range of theorizing
and research. Related researches of love have been
done through three methods. First, researches were
mostly about binary nature of love. Second, love was
considered beyond couples as a network phenomenon.
Third, researches which combine different level of
analysis in a way that paying attention to fundamental
aspects of love from personal perspectives. At the same
time, these researches encompass broader social
impacts. So, greater integration of multiple disciplines is
required. In the previous studies, some lists of main
variables and cognitive types of love have been
discussed. Demonstration of expanded terms of love and
lack of integrated studies do not provide clear research
agenda for acquiring knowledge about this valuable
concept. Hence, cognitive assessments are required in
this area (Zarghi et al.2011,2012). The aim of this study
is to investigate in systemic emotional, behavioral, and
cognitive mechanisms in rehabilitation of romantic love
neuro-cognitive processes.
Theories associated with emotional and behavioral
mechanisms in romantic love
Distinction between love and very close concepts
such as liking and attraction
One of the first tasks in studies related to romantic love is
distinguishing between love and associated concepts
such as liking and attraction. So, first we discuss about
conceptual distinctions. In some typologies, love has
been differentiated from a feeling with less intensity such
as liking. Many years ago researchers (Rubin, 1970)
separated like from love and created a scale for their
measuring. Loving includes subjects such as similarity,
respect and positive evaluation. Love dimensions were
independence, compassion and exclusiveness. They
found that love and like have moderate relationship with
each other and distinction between is still under study
(Lamm and Wiesman, 1997). However, like is barely
evaluated in relationship researches. Love also has been
separated from attraction. A main field in the area of
th
social cognition appeared in 20 century and there was a
kind of emphasis on love which was interpreted as
attraction (Byrne, 1971). Attraction is having positive
attitude toward others (Berscheid, 1985) and hence it is
related to love with less intensity. Also, love is compared
with other investigating structures of "relationships pulse"
including commitment, respect and intimacy (Orbuch and
Sprecher). Of these scales "pulse" is often considered as
an emotional love. In this way, emotional love is different
from companionship love (Walster and Walster, 1978).
Companionship love is a feeling between two persons
when marrying while emotional love is "the intense desire
to join another person", and the mutual love is
accompanied with "so much happiness and joy". If a twoway love is not achieved the result would be "anxiety and
disappointment" (Hatfield and Rapson, 1993). Therefore,
emotional intensity in emotional love is more than
companionship love.
Engagement, long-term relationships, increase of
self-esteem and greater understanding
Other researchers (Berscheid and Walster, 1974) have
assessed the emotional intensity of emotional love (from
emotion to emotional love) by using Schachter twocomponent theory (Schachter, 1964). It was argued that
emotional love is accompanied with more physiological
arousal intense. Dutton, Aron (Dutton and Aron) and
colleagues (White et al., 1981) have distinguished
emotional love from companionship love in terms of
elegance and its relation with sexuality. It showed that
emotional love appears less stable but more severe in
sexuality. There are some evidences for theoretical
differences between emotional love (often is assessed by
Hatfield and Sprecher emotional love scales (Hatfield and
Sprecher) and companionship love (often is assessed by
Rubin love scales (Rubin, 1970). However, these
differences are not substantial. For example, both
emotional and companionship love are related with
experiencing different positive feelings in a relationship
and there is no place for negative feelings (Sprecher and
Regan, 1998), (Regan et al. 1998). While, originally it
was supposed that emotional love is first formed in
relationships and then is converted to companionship
love (Walster and Walster, 1978) yet both kinds of love
are noted in romantic love (Hendrick, 1993), (Hatfield,
1998). This combination may confirm long-term
relationships claims such as marriage (Noller, 1996). The
dual distinction between companionship and emotional
love is similar to distinction between love making and
loving (Meyers and Berscheid, 1997). Being in love is
stronger than common making love and it is
accompanied with sexual desire (Regan et al. 1998),
(Regan, 1998), increased self-esteem (Hendrick and
Hendrick, 1998), and self understanding (Aron et al.
1996) especially in mutual love. In fact, "falling in love"
process which is a common social phenomenon can
indicate "being in love" process in emotional peak.
Typologies of love and their relationship with
personality
John Lee (Lee, 1973) designed love style typologies in
his studies based on interviews with married people.
These styles or love types are passionate love (intense
96. Basic Res. J. Med. Clin. Sci.
passionate love), ludus (game-playing love), storage
(friendship love), pragma (practical love), mania
(obsessive, dependent love) and agape (selfless love).
Although early researches of love styles had been
focused on developing all scales and establishing
psychometric properties, (Hendrick and hendrick, 1986),
(Hendrick et al., 1984) new researches are about how to
predict the end of a relationship by love styles and how to
test their relations with individuals' personality (Hendrick
and Hendrick, 1992). Some of love styles at least based
on the content of used items for assessment (Hendrick et
al., 1984) have more emotional intensity than others. In
fact, love styles have been described according to their
degree of emotional intensity. Passionate love and mania
have the most emotional intensity, agape is moderate,
ludus, storage and pragma are low in emotional intensity
scale. However, love styles generally reflect more "love
as a feeling" than "love as a emotional peak".
their own relations. So, every story forms partner
selection and final route of a relationship. Although
people may have multiple love stories, they prefer some
narratives to another. Common themes include couples
who enter a close relationship over time while always are
careful about their relationship and couples who are
always in conflict with each other. Sternberg identified
popular love stories in which feeling is likely a part of the
issue. These stories are: addiction story (severe affection
and eager / anxious), cultivate story (a connection
requires affection), horrible stories (a relationship
accompanying by couple’s threat and intimidation) and
war stories (love is chains of battles). Love story
approach is a newcomer matter in classification schema
of love and it deserves more experimental tests. One
significant question is relationship and difference
measures of many kinds of love in this vision by previous
schemes in this area. A general difference unlike
previous approaches is that this new concept is related to
two inter-related roles of each partner's love.
Commitment, intimacy, understanding, compassion
and support in relationships
Sternberg (Sternberg, 1988) considers three main
components for love: intimacy, passion and commitment
(it should be considered in a triangle shape). Each
component (triangle side) varies from down to up in a
way that it creates different numbers of shapes and sizes
of triangles. Furthermore, passion, commitment and
intimacy may be similar between couples and different
between person's current and ideal relationship. Intimacy
is an emotional or sentimental component which is
attributed to affection, understanding, compassion,
protection and communication. Passion is a motive which
is known by physical attractiveness and arousal.
Commitment is cognitive and refers to decision of staying
in a relationship and keeping it. Although intimacy is
described as emotional component, both intimacy and
passion have emotional dimensions as reflected in scale
items contents of these different components. Model of
triangular love involves eight types of love from lack of
love (no intimacy, passion and commitment) to a desired
end of love (a high degree of three components).
Emotional intensity of love types including passion and
intimacy can be considered higher than others. These
types involve romantic love (intimacy with passion) and
desired end of love. Except lack of love, hollow love is
accompanied with lowest degree of emotions which only
involves commitment. However, lack of deep
measurement for this specialized love typology prevents
the research from conducting because of diagnosis
problems of credibility (Aron et al., 2006). Sternberg
(Sternberg, 1988) presented a new approach to love.
This perspective has a social interpretation view toward
love and expresses love as a story. Individuals make love
stories based on social experiences with their partner,
media and others try to implement these love stories in
Feeling as
supportive
a
factor
in
behavioral
and
social
Other scholars have focused on the depth of a certain
kind of love which involves unrequited love (Baumeister
et al., 1993), limerence or any kind of intensive love
(Tennov, 1979), passion (Regan and Berscheid, 1999),
friendship love (Grote and Frieze, 1994), companionship
love (Sprecher and fehr, 2005) and love as a subject for
developing relationships and behavior (Bowlby, 1973).
Despitethere may be similarities between various types of
love; they include correlations and unique implications.
For instance, one-way love can lead to low self-esteem
(Baumeister et al., 1993) which is not the feature of other
types of love. In particular, companionship love can be a
sign of participation in social-supportive behaviors
(Sprencher and Fehr, 2005). There are limited
researches on cultural and sub-cultural differences in
various types of love and its experiences. Some scholars
have come to this end that there is an evidence for
cultural universality of romantic love (Hatfield and
Rapson, 1993). Researches also indicate differences
between race and social class (Contreras et al., 1996).
Similarly, there are some balanced gender differences in
love styles. For example, passion and ludus levels are
more in men while women have more tendencies toward
states of storage, pragma and mania (Hendrick and
Hendrick, 1986). Certain general theories of human
behavior are related to love studies. For example, selfevolution theory (Aron, 1996) states that individuals make
love for getting into a relationship with another specific
person in order to put him into their souls and
evolutionary experiences. Furthermore, dependence
theory (Bartholomew, 1990); Bowlby (Bowlby, 1973);
Hazan and Shaver (Hazan and Shaver, 1987) is a
Zarghi et al. 97
development theory which is applied for love. They argue
that adult romantic love is retrieved from human
dependency, care and sexual system. Adult relationships
attachment styles are different. This is partly dependent
on constructive experiences of caregiver. Finally, another
general theory which is at least used indirectly about love
is behavior evolution theory (Buss, 1988). This view is
focused on possible evolution way of attitudes and
feelings and their use as developmental and reproductive
values during time. The fiery love might have help
"species of male and female in reproduction" and
companionship love might have provided “experience of
relationship survival and its related reproduction". This
theory also predicts sexual differences in preferred love
partner and used mating strategies to attract love partner.
"Love acts" (shown behaviors to one person) are involved
in reproduction because of their relationship. Theories of
related concepts also help interpretation of one aspect of
love such as motivation for entering into a relationship.
Goode (Goode, 1959) defines love as a deep emotional
attachment in "theoretical importance of love". He claims
that this psychological cathexis has a significant
importance in phenomena investigations at social level.
Goode studied power of love and its capacity in
disrupting social structures, class system and lineage
relationships within the community. Selection of casual
partner can cause fundamental changes in current social
structures of society and classification system. Kemper
(Kemper, 1987) argues that love is a feeling of social
relationship and it is composed of two elements: power
and status. Simultaneous love is both experience of
emotional coordination and desire of compatibility with
beloved status. Love making is basically different from
liking someone because liking someone is a feeling
which is stimulated by rewards or states that we get from
another one. Romantic love is when lovers experience
relatively high levels of state / emotion and love in their
relationship (Kemper, 1997). In romantic love, lovers
show high levels of emotional affaires and severe pain for
reinforced fear of losing relationship which involves one
side of relation. So, inconsistency of love relates to both
its voluntary and involuntary characteristic and apparently
out of individuals’ controlling feature.
Networks can influence all aspects of love. Fist, if a
couple wants to love each other, they must meet each
other. Social networks form an environment which
individuals tend to communicate with their probable
beloved person (Goode, 1959). Social networks may
affect on the searching kind of love or person’s opinion
for being an experience. When a relation starts, direct
social position of couples influences constantly on their
love. Social network protection and confirmation of
couples predicts increased feelings of love and its
durability over time (Felmlee et al., 1990), (Sprecher and
Felmlee, 2000). Why should social environment increase
love feeling and its durability? Friends and supporter
family bestows to couples a safe and ready nest, a
source of emotional support which makes the opportunity
of growing. Some couples need practical and financial
helps. Emotional advice and support are also necessary
for maintaining relationships. On the other hand, it is
accepted that in some cases network opposition
strengthens couple’s relationship instead of destroying
feeling of love between partners. General role of network
support and opposition in formation of a controversial
love is not so clear. A couple's relationship may not last
forever, at this time a deficiency can be clear according to
nature of social ties (Lofland, 1982). Little research has
been done in this regard but social environment of
individuals may affect measured emotional path. At the
end, almost no scientific investigation has been
conducted on interference, strengthen or change of
experienced love by romantic couples and vice versa for
close non-romantic relationship by others. In focusing on
adults’ romantic love, couples of opposite sex are more
pronounced in love researches rather than families and
other members of the network. Furthermore, these
couples and social-family dynamics are different in
cultures; so a spread research is needed for addressing
these issues.
Neuro-cognitive mecanisms in Romantic Love
It seems that love can help to emotion rehabilitation. One
of the goals of this study was to investigate systemic
cognitive mechanisms in rehabilitation of romantic love
neuro-cognitive processes. Romantic love can change
the neuro-cognitive processess to be used in emotion
restructuring. It can be used as a way of empowering
feeling to be loved. Emotional neural pathways overlap
with other cognitive domains and reinforce
these
pathways help to strengthen the cognitive processes so
with these changes can affect a person's quality of life.
Cortical and sub-cortical brain structures are involved in
romantic love. Insula is also related to several emotional
performances and its damage results in serious
emotional consequences including interpretation of visual
data (Flynn et al., 1999). Imaging studies confine
negative emotional experiences in the anterior insula
which is different from the middle insula (Flynn et al.,
1999). Previous studies indicate that attractive unfamiliar
faces had a positive relationship with flow velocity
(Nakamura et al., 1999), an area which apparently does
not overlap with other parts. Large anterior cingulate
cortex includes several distinct and main components
(Devinsky et al., 1995). Of course, several sub-sectors of
it play an important role in emotional functions. In
previous imaging researches, different emotions were
attributed to anterior cingulate and various sub-sectors
were activated. Especially anterior cingulate cortex
includes some parts suggesting happy emotional states,
self-attention and in particular social interactions involving
assessing of emotions and mental states of ones own
98. Basic Res. J. Med. Clin. Sci.
Figure 1. Brain structures involved in the processes of romantic love
and others (Frith et al., 1999), (Devinsky et al., 1995).
Caudate nucleus and putamen were observed in
investigating positive emotions of two activated
subcortical zones (Morris et al., 1996; Breiter et al., 1997;
Nakamura et al., 1999; Lane et al., 1997; Stoleru et al.,
1999). These areas are also activated by negative
emotions (George et al., 1995; Lane et al., 1997;
Teasdale et al., 1999) and both of them are a part of
extra pyramidal motor system. Motor imagery, mental
rotation and motor execution usually do not activate any
of these two structures (Decety and Grezes, 1999).
Totally these results require a reassessment of putamen
and caudate nucleus roles in emotional states as some
parts of extra pyramidal motor system (Koepp et al.,
1998).
Happiness is related to inactivation of right prefrontal
cortex, bilateral and temporal parietal (George et al.,
1995). Depression and sadness are associated with
activation of certain cortical areas, particularly, the right
prefrontal cortex (Beauregard et al., 1998) which its
artificial inactivation by transcranial magnetic stimulation
has confirmed the successful treatment of depression
(Menkes et al., 1992). Posterior cingulate cortex is
usually an active area in examination of emotion
(Maddock, 1999), but its function is not exactly
understood. Inactivation of amygdaloid area is
interestingly important, because its activity is related to
fear, distress and aggression. It is suspected that it is
involved in emotional learning (LeDoux, 1996).
Researches suggest that amygdaloid area is more active
when experiencing positive feelings during visiting friends
and lovers (Morris et al., 1996).
Sexual arousal is always accompanied by romantic
love. Sexual arousal (Stoleru et al., 1999), (Rauch et al.,
1999) happens in two active areas, one in left nucleous
caudate and right insula and the other in globus pallidus
(Rauch et al., 1999). Also, it is inactivated in posterior
cingulate cortex (Stoleru et al. 1999) and right
hemisphere (Rauch et al. 1999). Stimulated areas in
interior cingulate cortex (Bartels and Zeki, 1999; Breiter
et al., 1997) in resulted euphoria of cocaine and opiodic
materials are insula, caudate nucleous and putamen
(Breiter et al. 1997) which are similar to stimulated areas
in romantic
love (Figure 1)
This suggests a close relationship between romantic
love and happiness state. Although sexual interest and
romantic love often occur together, these two categories
are essentially different inner experiences which their
neuro-biological substrates are different, too. The basis of
these differences is evolutionary origin of each
experience. Sexual desire issues happen in regard to
partner selection. Oxytocin impact on love and sexual
desire is the answer to why there is a bilateral
relationship between love and desire in women more
than men. Since most of the researches in neuro-
Zarghi et al. 99
biological substrates of sexual desire and emotional
dependency was done about animals, systemic review of
coordinated biological, behavioral and cognitive trends
are prior in further investigations which form experiences
of love and desire among humans. Researches about
love and passion have focused on neuro-biological
substrates of behaviors and distinctive cognitions.
Although little related research has been done in this
area about humans, a range of evidence shows that
specified experimental differences between love and
passion may be attributed to impacts of their neurochemical differences. For example, estrogens and
androgens (Fisher, 1998) directly mediate sexual desire.
However, hormones are not mediating emotional
constraint information. In contrast, researches on animal
show that distinctive emotions and behaviors are related
to formation of affection through basic environment
"reward" in the mammalian brain origin. These include
coordinated action of endogenous opioid matters,
catecholamine and neuropeptides such as oxytocin.
These neuro-chemical materials regulate a range of
emotional, cognitive, behavioral and physiological trends
which facilitate social links by promotion and nourishment
of qualified communications between certain social
partners and inherent feeling (Schachter, 1964).
Passion creates feelings of euphoria and elation in
humans. Also, it is followed by feelings of exhilaration
and happiness which are often intolerable and absolutely
indescribable. The areas which are activated in response
to romantic feelings are largely cooperating with those
areas of brain containing high concentrations of neuromodulator in connection with states such as reward,
desire, addiction and euphoria. Like two other neuromodulators, oxytocin and vasopressin which are related
to romantic love, dopamine is also released by
hypothalamus and acts as a connector between nervous
and endocrine systems. When exogenous opioid drugs
like cocaine are used (exactly when these materials were
swallowed), similar areas became activated. Of course, it
should be mentioned that these materials induce a state
of euphoria spontaneously. Dopamine release puts the
person in a state of euphoria and it seems that dopamine
has a close relationship not only with relationship
formations but also with sexual relations. It is worth
notifying that these relations occur subsequently after
euphoria and rewarding states. By increasing the amount
of dopamine, another neuro-modulator named serotonin
decreases (HT-5 or hydroxy tryptamine -5) which is
related to mood (Zeki, 2007). Some studies show
decrease in serotonin amount in the early stages of
romantic love which its extent is common in patients with
practical obsessions. After all it should be said that love is
a kind of thought obsession. Thinking usually does not
act well in the early stages of romantic love. It seems that
these early stages are related to another material. It has
been approved that neuro-development factor is more in
those who are newly in love than those who are not,
people who are in a strong relationship and even those
who are in love for a long time. Moreover, it seems that
concentration of neuro-development factor significantly
depends on severity of romantic feelings. It appears that
oxytocin and other neuro-modulators which are
chemically related to romantic love such as vasopressin
are specifically associated with bonding and attachments.
Both of them are produced by hypothalamus that are
released and stored in pituitary. This is done in order to
get into the blood. Occurrence of these events is more
important especially at the time of orgasm in both sexes
and also during birth and breastfeeding among women.
In men, vasopressin is also associated with their social
behavior especially it has significant effect on their
aggressive behavior. During the stage that affection and
intensive romantic love occur, the concentration of both
neuro-modulators increase and the receptors of them are
distributed in many parts of the brain stem. These
receptors are activated during romantic love. In a study
(Bartels, 2000), the brain of the people who were truly,
deeply and strongly involved in love was examined in two
states: once when watching their lover's photos and the
other when watching friends photo (of the opposite sex).
Watching images of the beloved in compared with
friends was accompanied with increased activity in insula,
the anterior cingulated cortex and the areas which were
related to positive feelings, attention to personal
emotions, attention to emotional states of social partners
and even happiness resulted from opiate materials. Also,
observing the images of the beloved is related to
inactivation of posterior cingulate cortex, amygdale, right
prefrontal and parietal cortex, middle temporal cortex and
the areas which are related to sadness, fear, aggression
and depression. Brain areas which show distinct patterns
of activity did not overlap with active areas during sexual
arousal and watching images of romantic partners.
However, the early understanding of neuro-chemical
substrates of love and interest indicates that biological
factors help to this sexual difference. Most of neurochemical
materials
which
control
mammalians
dependence specially oxytocin, vasopressin and
dopamine also control sexual behaviors. These neurochemical materials often show patterns of sexual and
hormonal functions. For instance, there are more
oxytocin brain circuits in female rats than male ones.
Perhaps this is due to the ease of caring behaviors
related to oxytocin. Oxytocin is combined with estrogen
and regulates sexual receptivity of female rats
(Panksepp, 1998). In humans, oxytocin rate is more in
women rather than men during sexual activity and in
some women there is a correlation between release of
oxytocin and orgasm intensity. These findings about
areas of sexual desire – relationship between love and
desire – are influenced by oxytocin relation and gender
roles in these trends. Furthermore, this fact that
sometimes women are interested in similar sex is
because that they fall in love with their female friends
100. Basic Res. J. Med. Clin. Sci.
Figure 2. Neurotransmitters involved in the processes of romantic love
(this phenomenon occurs rarely in men). It means that
controlled relations of oxytocin between love and desires
enable women to focus more on sexual orientation. In
other words, although basic dependence between love
and desire means that sexual orientation necessarily
does not limit their capacity for emotional dependency,
eco-behavioral relations between love and desire attach
these two matters to each other. It means that love
creates desire and vice versa (Diamond, 2003). Though
this is true in both sexes, this occurs more in women
because of moderate trends of oxytocin and that also
women are culturally free to have intimate relations with
the same sex (Figure 2).
Identifying cortical activities related to romantic love
state is accompanied with comparison of a positive
feeling (romantic love) with another matter (friendship).
The richest experiences of human have specific
functional systems in the brain. This is surprising that
there is a strong and complex feeling in limited areas of
brain. It is more surprising that these areas act separately
despite the complexity of romantic love feeling, uplifting,
motivating, persecution features and its impact on
behavior. Spread cortical relations of these different
activated areas undoubtedly are related to the use of
other areas in this complex emotional state and they
have different activity patterns in regard with people and
positions. Due to the unique feature of created activity
pattern, this assumption is reasonable that certain
emotional states relate to other sub-systems activities of
brain.
CONCLUSION
Romantic Love is a controversial and interesting subject
for cognitive researchers and theorists. Of course, there
is discordance in some issues. The aim of this study is to
investigate systemic emotional, behavioral, and cognitive
mechanisms in rehabilitation of romantic love neurocognitive processes. Previous researches show that
scientific investing should be in the right direction to
expand understanding of this significant personal
phenomenon. Therefore, it can be used as a solution in
emotion rehabilitation. Romantic love is the ability to
change the neuro-cognitive processes used as a factor in
social
cognitive
rehabilitation.
Neuro-cognitive
assessments of romantic love help to better neurobiological understanding of this complex feeling and
stimulated activity pattern is special here and involves a
group of different emotions. Multi-dimensional nature of it
adds to the complexity of studies so it involves more
integration of several fields for assessing. Today,
assessment of cognitive, emotional, sensual and
behavioral components done in previous studies and
related researches with romantic love does not seem
enough and need more investigations with human
Zarghi et al. 101
cognitive evolution more than ever. Attention to social
effects and its cognition require manifestation role and
evolution of new components. Identification of emotional,
behavioral and cognitive processes provides the richest
experiences of romantic love to the functional systems of
the brain. The perception of this complex feeling create
uplifting, motivation, change and evolution of behavior in
human. Ability of complex feelings in extensive cortical
areas is related to different brain active patterns among
different persons and situations. Powerful role of romantic
love is activation of involuntary cortical circuits which can
create compliance or change which are the bases of
feeling rehabilitation. In current study, we tried to briefly
express neuro-cognitive theories and systems in the
broad field of therapeutic advances, methodological and
theoretical affaires. Hope that interested researchers pay
more attention to assessments of romantic love neural
correlates.
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