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Possible Love Molecule?
aychamo writes "Psychiatrists from Pavia University have associated early romantic love with a biochemical known as nerve growth factor (NGF). Apparently, levels of NGF in the bloodstream were significantly higher in subjects who were in the early stages of romance than individuals not in a relationship. Interestingly, "subjects in love who--after 12-24 months--maintained the same relationship but were no longer in the same mental state to which they had referred during the initial evaluation" did not have elevated NGF levels."
I'd like to see the development of the love bomb.
Riot breaks out, and instead of tear gas they love gas them.
Civil war in wherever? Drop the love bomb!
Pretty Pictures!
I'm not trying to sound like a smartass - and I really think this is a neat discovery, to isolate an associated molecule, perhaps - but did anyone with a serious biology background really believe that a neurally modulated social interaction that had obvious and enduring systemic physiological effects *wasn't* associated with circulating factors or hormones?
I mean, there's a systemic effect that's present for a limited duration. I'm not trying to "ruin love", but why should it have worked any differently?
Well, the levels rise, but are they the source of the feeling or more like effect of it?
Tell me why the stars do shine
Tell me why the ivy twines
Tell me why the sky's so blue
and I'll tell you why I love you.
Nuclear fusion makes stars to shine
Phototropism makes ivy twine
Rayleigh scattering makes sky so blue
Sexual hormones are why I love you.
Anagram("United States of America") == "Dine out, taste a Mac, fries"
I agree with the point that you're making, however, the study does seem to strongly indicate a causation relationship. From the summary:
"Apparently, levels of NGF in the bloodstream were significantly higher in subjects who were in the early stages of romance than individuals not in a relationship."
If love was the result of the presence of this chemical, as you suggested, we would expect to see a high level of the chemical in at least a small percentage of the individuals who were not in a relationship at the time of the study. This small percentage would represent the people who were ready to fall in love/enter a relationship but had not yet done so. Since the higher levels were found only in people who had recently fallen in love and not in the other groups, including those in long term relationships, the data seems to indicate that it was falling in love/starting a relationship that triggered production of the chemical.
Of course, a larger study would be needed to more confidently state that there is such a causation relationship, but from what little I've read of this study, there IS some evidence leaning towards that conclusion.
Research links high blood-content levels of the molecule NGF (nerve growth factor) to frequent delusions or hallucinations, impaired judgment, and a strange speech defect known only as "infantilation," characterized by--among other things--the inability to pronounce the consonants /l/ or /r/.
Researchers disagree on the exact effects of the dangerous compound, but have all stressed its perception altering characteristics, and have pushed strongly for stricter FDA standards concerning amounts found in consumer products. Hallmark, for example, would be required to either blow up its card factory or allow warning labels on every card.
/. is what happens when geeks talk. get used to it.
repeat after me, "Correlation does not imply causality".
Usually I don't have to reduce my threshold so low to find this comment. It's always there. Anytime science is performed that deals in correlation, someone has to make this comment.
Unfortunately, to me it just makes me feel like you don't understand what correlation is. Of course it doesn't show causality. So it's useless? Give me an area of science that doesn't use correlation ever, and I'll show you an area of science that's so obvious it's not interesting.
I really have never understood the mentality that anything which cannot be directly observed should be ignored. Science is a game of inches (despite the media's best efforts) and "breakthroughs" are rare, as they fundamentally require something that is both fully observable (maybe indirectly by a new technology) and something which was previously not understood at all.
What's wrong with a study that finds that there is a relationship between X and Y and should be studied further? If this is useless, the government is paying for a lot of pointless research in Inferential Statistics.
love bomb
I believe that's called Tequila.
For the first few months the molecule proliferates throughout the body as NGF phase 1, also known as the "New Girl Friend" molecule. After a set period of time, it transmutes into NGF phase 2, known as "Noticably Getting Fatter". This phase change causes a dramatic decrease in the desire to have sexual intercourse and initiate conversations, eventually leading to the end of the relationship.
The cycle may then begin a new with a new parter.
If I were on the research team, my next step would be to inject cool single women with NGF and do long informal interviews to figure out what happens. Maybe there'd also be wine. You know, for science!
No. It doesn't:
Um, yes it does.
Large % of those in love owned cars (implying cars cause love)
What? No. It does not say that cars cause love. In fact, parent specifically said he was talking about probability. Your example implies that cars and love are related. It doesn't imply that love causes one to have a car, nor the other way around. It could very well be that both love and ownership of a car is caused by a third variable, like wealth.
# Small percentage of those in love owned telescopes (implying telescopes make falling in love unlikely)
# Large % of those in love had eaten at McDonalds (implying McDonalds causes love)
Again, you have a misunderstanding of what a correlation is. None of those has anything to do with causation, necessarily. Nor does correlation suggest causation.
That's why negative samples, control groups that isolate the issue under test, repeatability and more are much more significant than correlation.
Well of course. If someone prefers correlation over clear causal relationship, they're likely to be mad (now that's a correlation!). But clear causal relationships are difficult to determine, and those who do "determine" them are often found to be WRONG only 5 or 10 years later.
Why does Slashduh keep insisting on trying to report on the life sciences when it (the editors and story submitters) are so obviously clueless about the topic?
To begin with, why the fuck is there a link to totally idiotic misinterpretations in the popular mainstream media instead of a link to an abstract of the original article in Journal of Psychoneuroendocrinology?
Needless to say, the Yahoo!/Reuters article was awful.
"The powerful emotions that bowl over new lovers are triggered by a molecule known as nerve growth factor (NGF), according to Pavia University researchers."
No! The researchers said no such thing at all!
They said that they have shown that there's a high plasma level of NGF in subjects who have recently fallen in love. That is all, and it's not surprising or ground breaking. We already know that love (and other emotions) are associated with varying levels of growth factors in general and neurotrophins in particular, along with a host of other changes in our chemistry. For example, here is a study showing that kissing affects immune responses by way of NGF. NGF is no "love molecule" any more than it is a "stress molecule" or a "healing molecule". NGF does not cause love or kissing! Quit being sensationalistic retards!
Slashdot supposedly reports "news for nerds, stuff that matters". Then why is it OK to report laymen's misconceptions about "love molecules", when it would be unacceptable to propagate e.g. laymen's misconceptions in the mainstream media about "hackers", or calling a harddisk a "virus device" (only because it can also store computer viruses)?
Why is it OK to post biology news from Yahoo! instead of from the original source, when a submission containing just as vague, dumbed down and incorrect news from Yahoo! about e.g. the Linux kernel would never get published here (other than for comedic effect)?
I humbly suggest that Slashduh should quit reporting on other sciences than technology. You'll obviously never get it right or even know what actually is the stuff that matters in those news.
Help savingAmigaOS and a free PowerPC market
I don't think thats the point. Its more that correlation is the science equivalent of vaporware, or "Wake me up when you've got causation".
Reports of a new correlation between events in the popular press just confound the general public who don't understand science, and assume that because a scientist finds this correlation interesting it must be true. This is proved frequently on Slashdot, where otherwise normal geeks, who have an above average understanding of science (that's a scary thought) are thrown into a frenzy of panic when somebody says something like "High concentration of caffiene in the blood is found to reduce attraction to women".
I'm not saying Joe 'Karma' Whore should get +5 Insightful everytime they state the obvious, but it would appear that Correlation != Causation can't be said enough when dealing with the public.
Scared of flying, pointy things snce 1979!
I would say more fights break out due to large amounts of tequila than just about anything else. Well, beer being number one followed very closely with tequila.
Worse yet, tequila usually means fights with vomiting involved.
Hardly a "love bomb"....unless you're into that kind of thing.
"Leo Fender was in a 'state of grace' when he designed the Stratocaster." -- Paul Reed Smith
"Love Molecule" is something really insulting to say about someone's manhood
The only things certain in war are Propaganda and Death. You can never be sure which is which though
It's not you, it's my Nerve Growth Factor! We can still be friends, right?
Demented But Determined.
You know this would never fly, and the reason is simple.
Look how much violence gets on US tv, and what happens? A little muttering about violence, and then more violence. But just watch Janet Jackson's nipple show on TV, and watch the fan REALLY turn dripping brown.
If we were to drop the love bomb on a rioting crowd, it just might work effectively. Then there might be that REAL crisis, public nudity and some of them might even *gasp* have sexual intercourse.
Remember, this is the same society that is considering witholding a vaccine for papiloma virus (a major cause of cervical cancer) because they're concerned that it might encourage promiscuity.
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
Being an interested layman, I don't want to read junk science anymore than you, a scientist, want the public to be dog-ignorant. Slashdot is Slashdot, it's arse for trustworthy info, but often interesting for comments. Rather than trying to reform the incorrigible, why not get together with a few other like minded scientists and start publishing your own competitor Slashdot-style blog of "genuinely interesting but real and undistorted science news"? I'm sure there's plenty of it out there to be told.
Is there an opposite effect like a NGF killer protein responsible for modulating behavior in humans in the absence of love? Does that mean that people going through divorce, love lost, heartbroken or the Thrill is Gone are equally biologically driven by some whigged-out molecule?
It is oxytocin, which is the female bonding / lactating chemical, not to be confused with oxycontin. ;)
There is also PEA (phenylethylamine), which is an anti-depressent / stimulant that is present in higher concentrations during the beginning stages of a relationship (and obtained from chocolate too!). I would venture to say that this chemical has far more addictive qualities than NGF.
You need to restart your computer. Hold down the Power button for several seconds or press the Restart button.