Alexandra Jones
(Picture: ES / Natasha Pszenicki)There’s always a lot of hand-wringing when the news of so-called ‘love drugs’ pops up - which it does every few years. This week, the Oxford University anthropologist Dr Anna Machin told Cheltenham Science Festival that love drugs - compounds which might help us fall or stay in love are “on the horizon...
“MDMA, for people who go clubbing, makes them feel like they love everyone else in the room. But users also have a surge in empathy, so it could be used to help those struggling in their marriage,” she pointed out, explaining that on a neurochemical level, love is largely the work of four hormones: dopamine, serotonin, beta endorphin and oxytocin. Theoretically, stimulating the production of those hormones would, if not make a person fall in love, then at least make them more open to it.
