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After you mentioned "falling out of love" in class, Emily, I started thinking about it in relation to an addiction model. We had just been talking about the potential to uncover the neural pathways associated with love (dopamine, etc.), and it made me think of some concepts we've been talking about a lot in my psychopharmacology class. IF, when we "fall in love," certain pathways are activated.....and assuming that these pathways function similarly to other neural pathways.....then eventually the postsynaptic receptors involved in these pathways will be downregulated to balance out the sudden increase in neurotransmitter levels. Staying in love would maintain (or continue to increase?) the high level of neurotransmitters being released in these pathways, which would continue the downregulation of receptors, resulting in us eventually having far fewer receptors than we started out with.

Any external (i.e., not biological) factor that negatively influenced feelings of love would then result in a decrease in neurotransmitter levels and, because of the lower number of receptors, withdrawal symptoms. These withdrawal symptoms could be manifested as depression, lethargy, etc.....the usual behaviors exhibited after a breakup. These withdrawal symptoms/behaviors last a while, which could be explained by the feedback system having to play catch-up to restore a proper balance of receptors as the neurotransmitter levels gradually return to baseline. In this way, I think that love fits nicely into a neurobiological model of addiction. Plus, the time it takes to upregulate receptors to a baseline level could explain why people who have just fallen out of love feel like they "will never love again." So, keeping in mind that this is entirely hypothetical and would only matter if we were in fact able to identify neural pathways that underlie love....does any small environmental influence to decrease love essentially make "falling out of love" inevitable, because of the neurotransmitter-receptor imbalance that it causes?

I just think it's fascinating to discuss love from a neurobiological perspective -- especially since it's something that, in cinematic and poetic cliches, is described as "magical" or something that "just happens" (quite the opposite of terms that neurobiologists and neuropsychologists like to use). Thanks for a great presentation (and, as always, discussion)!