Gay Love Looks Just Like Straight Love (Inside Your Brain)

It doesn’t matter if you’re a straight gal looking at your wedding photos or a gay man Skypeing with your partner: the areas of the brain that “light up” when people see their romantic partners are the exact same whether you’re a man or woman, or straight or gay, report University College London researchers. Activity in the cortical and sub-cortical regions — basically your brain’s happy centers, rich with dopamine — was examined using functional magnetic resonance imaging scans (i.e. fancy brain scans), and found that while “some brain regions showed increased activity when lovers viewed images of romantic partners, others shut down, such as parts of the temporal, parietal, and frontal cortex, which are thought to be important in judgment. That finding lends credence to the adage that ‘love is blind,’” says Semir Zeki, a professor at the school’s Wellcome Trust Center for Neuroimaging.