A recent report in The Observer reports that a team of neurologists, just down the road from me in University College London, has produced evidence to show that a particular part of the brain is activated when a person beholds their beloved. This section heats up and can be seen glowing in a magnetic resonance imaging scanner. There are a few other sections also affected, but the main one is the medial insula, or the "middle island". This part has a lot to do with the other sensory areas of the brain, and is particularly associated with the gut hence the suggestion that "butterflies in the stomach" are rooted in scientific fact.

Oh dear. Science marches purposefully into the realms of human consciousness. I used to think consciousness was the realm of poets, not scientists for much academic psychology is bent on a reductive soulless search for common denominators, whereas anyone with a heart knows that personality and soul can be found in the details that make each of us unique.
As I am quite flummoxed with the success of Prozac (2 months now since I crawled into the doctor's office, one month since starting to have a life again) and have begun to appreciate the huge importance of scientific research into the functions of the brain, this new examination of love as a neurological process is intriguing as well as challenging. There is now the potential for developing a drug that targets the "love section" of the brain and recreating a simulated effect of being in love a true emotional aphrodisiac (from Aphrodite, the goddess of love), as opposed to a mechanical sex-potion such as Viagra.
There is a popular aphrodisiac much used and abused every weekend by thousands ecstasy. From my experience, ecstasy is a love-drug indeed one of its early uses was to aid couples in marriage guidance sessions, to loosen the barriers of hostility and mistrust. Ecstasy certainly dissolves boundaries but because it's unregulated and untested and home-made and each pill don't come with a receipt, it is highly dangerous. I've not had an e in over a year, and I don't intend to do it again.
But a drug created to simulate the effects of love without doing damage to the brain now that's a different story entirely. I have no doubt that when (not if) they develop such a drug, that those who take it won't feel the love as false it will feel real. But with whom will they feel in love? The doctor? The first person they meet? The dog? Or will it only enhance feelings that are already there, helping to sustain flagging relationships?
My awareness of myself has changed while on Prozac, in a way that is real. I don't detect any signs of feeling "drugged", but I am undoubtedly different, more able to deal with the world, more confident.
Last week, a group of four young lads hissed "batty-boy" (the Jamaican term of homophobic abuse, meaning bum-boy) menacingly at me as I passed them on the street, walking home. I turned and roared at them, like a demon possessed. (I only had two pints on me). I knew that the only way to make sure I wasn't going to be touched was if I appeared kamikaze-mad enough to put the fear of God in them that they might get hurt if they came close. I also knew that, although my skills were not really past beginner stage, learning karate last year had changed my perception of myself at least in terms of how I could defend myself most efficiently. I kept on roaring, standing my ground, the words: "Are you causing trouble? Are you?" until, most satisfyingly, they backed off, muttering and sniggering, like hyenas with their tails between their legs.
I hardly recognised myself. I remembered the last time I was queerbashed, ten years ago, and the shame and the self-destructiveness that that sorry episode revealed in me, and I felt triumphant. It's not simply the drug I'll never know that for sure, of course but it was a good, if not defining, moment for me.
But back to this love drug. We all know what being in love is like that heady intoxicated feeling of fantasy coming to life, dreams coming true, euphoria, the bliss of merging with another. Some people make a habit of falling in love all the time, because it's such a high and then get embittered and sour when it fades. But someone said to me recently that love is an act of will, not a feeling it's a conscious decision to be loving in real life, as opposed to escaping from real life into romantic fantasy. I suspect that too few of us, and I include myself in this, are ready to really engage in loving.
I had a blast of heady romantic love the other weekend, the sort that I imagine had my medial insula lit up like fireworks, when I attended the birthday party of someone I'd met for a couple of highly enjoyable nights six weeks previously.
I'd done a spot of retail therapy for the occasion a new suit and the most expensive shirt I have ever bought and the effect was remarkable. I felt like a million dollars. Birthday boy was smitten, and gave me the full works, telling me drunkenly and earnestly that he loved me so much, introducing me to his friends as his new boyfriend, and unceremoniously dumping the guy he'd been dating, a 6'4" policeman, by dint of snogging me in front of him. It was all rather unreal and adolescent and rather sweet, and certainly did my ego a lot of good. Please bear in mind, I haven't been out much recently.
But in the morning, although I was cooked a delicious breakfast, the conversation was stilted, and I knew it was not to last. He didn't ring, didn't return my call. The silence from him was proof that what we both enjoyed had nothing to do with love i.e. appreciation and respect for each other and more to do with us both playing the game of falling in love. It was fun while it lasted we both gave each other a fix of that aphrodisiac, that made the world light up for each other, for one glorious night. But like all drugs, it faded.
That's the truth of the matter. Emotions come and go. When the party is over, and one is faced with a hungover stranger at breakfast, who quite obviously is not the answer to your soul's search for perfection, that's when the choice to be loving comes into play. All the pharmacological magic that scientists can create will not affect our capacity to choose how we live our lives.
Choosing not to be bullied into submission by a gang of queerbashers is not proof that a drug has worked its magic on me, and transformed me into an alpha male. It's the product of all the choices I've made to eliminate shame in my life and to stand up for myself.
Choosing to forgive the birthday boy, as I have, who was gripped in the fervour of romantic love, and who spoke sweet lies all night to bed me, is not a sign that I've become cynical or jaded. It's a choice I've made to see beyond the games we play with each other, to hold open the possibility that, as stormy as the seas may be, as we're buffeted by overwhelming emotional waves, that through the clouds above, there is a guiding star.
Science will never find a part of the brain that relates to faith.