Editing Limerence (section)

=== Addiction ===
Limerence has been called an [[addiction]].<ref name="Tennov 1999 x">{{harvnb|Tennov|1999|p=x}}</ref><ref name="mccracken" /> The early stage of [[Romance (love)|romantic love]] is comparable to a [[behavioral addiction]] (i.e. addiction to a non-substance) but the "substance" involved is the loved person.<ref name="tallis-addict">{{harvnb|Tallis|2004|pp=216-218,235}}: "[T]he limerent individual obsesses, idealises and shows high levels of emotional dependency. [...] There are certainly some striking similarities between love and addiction[,] particularly those described by Hite and Tennov. [...] At first, addiction is maintained by pleasure, but the intensity of this pleasure gradually diminishes and the addiction is then maintained by the avoidance of pain. [...] The 'addiction' is to a person, or an experience, not a chemical. [...] [O]ne of the characteristics shared by addicts and lovers is that they both obsess. The addict is always preoccupied by the next 'fix' or 'hit', while the lover is always preoccupied by the beloved. Such obsessions are associated with compulsive urges to seek out what is desired [...]."</ref><ref name="fisher2016" /><ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Grant |first1=Jon |last2=Potenza |first2=Marc |last3=Weinstein |first3=Aviv |last4=Gorelick |first4=David |date=21 June 2010 |title=Introduction to Behavioral Addictions |journal=[[The American Journal of Drug and Alcohol Abuse]] |volume=36 |issue=5 |pages=233–241|doi=10.3109/00952990.2010.491884 |pmid=20560821 |pmc=3164585 }}</ref> A team led by [[Helen Fisher (anthropologist)|Helen Fisher]] used [[Functional magnetic resonance imaging|fMRI]] to find that people who had "just fallen madly in love" showed activation in an area of the [[brain]] called the [[ventral tegmental area]], which projects [[dopamine]] to other brain areas, while looking at a photograph of their beloved.<ref name="fisher2016" /><ref name="fisher2002" /> This as well as activity in other key areas supports the theory that people in love experience what is called [[incentive salience]] in response to the loved person, which could be a result of [[oxytocin]] activity in motivation pathways in the brain.<ref name=":7">{{Cite journal |last1=Zou |first1=Zhiling |last2=Song |first2=Hongwen |last3=Zhang |first3=Yuting |last4=Zhang |first4=Xiaochu |date=21 September 2016 |title=Romantic Love vs. Drug Addiction May Inspire a New Treatment for Addiction |journal=[[Frontiers in Psychology]] |volume=7 |page=1436 |doi=10.3389/fpsyg.2016.01436 |pmc=5031705 |pmid=27713720 |doi-access=free}}</ref><ref name="fisher2016" /><ref name=":9">{{Cite journal |last1=Bode |first1=Adam |last2=Kavanagh |first2=Phillip S. |date=November 2023 |title=Romantic Love and Behavioral Activation System Sensitivity to a Loved One |journal=Behavioral Sciences |language=en |volume=13 |issue=11 |pages=921 |doi=10.3390/bs13110921 |issn=2076-328X |pmc=10669312 |pmid=37998668 |doi-access=free}}</ref>

Incentive salience is the property by which cues in the environment stand out to a person and become attention-grabbing and attractive, like a "motivational magnet" which pulls a person towards a particular reward.<ref name=":10">{{Cite journal |last1=Berridge |first1=Kent |last2=Robinson |first2=Terry |last3=Aldridge |first3=J. Wayne |date=February 2009 |title=Dissecting components of reward: 'liking', 'wanting', and learning |journal=[[Current Opinion in Pharmacology]] |volume=9 |issue=1 |pages=65–73|doi=10.1016/j.coph.2008.12.014 |pmid=19162544 |pmc=2756052 }}</ref><ref name=":11">{{Cite journal |last1=Berridge |first1=Kent |last2=Robinson |first2=Terry |date=2016 |title=Liking, wanting, and the incentive-sensitization theory of addiction |journal=[[American Psychologist]] |volume=71 |issue=8 |pages=670–679 |doi=10.1037/amp0000059|pmid=27977239 |pmc=5171207 }}</ref> The phenomenon Tennov describes as a loved one taking on a "special meaning" to the person in love is believed to be related to this heightened salience in response to the loved one.<ref name="fisher1998" /><ref name=":9" />

In addiction research, a distinction is also drawn between "wanting" a reward (i.e. incentive salience, tied to [[Mesocorticolimbic circuit|mesocorticolimbic]] dopamine) and "liking" a reward (i.e. pleasure, tied to [[hedonic hotspots]]), aspects which are dissociable.<ref name=":10" /><ref name=":11" /> People can be addicted to drugs and compulsively seek them out, even when taking the drug no longer results in a high or the addiction is detrimental to one's life.<ref name="fisher2016" /> They can also "want" (i.e. feel compelled towards, in the sense of incentive salience) something which they do not [[Cognition|cognitively]] wish for.<ref name=":10" /> In a similar way, people who are in love may "want" a loved person even when interactions with them are not pleasurable. For example, they may want to contact an ex-partner after a rejection, even when the experience will only be painful.<ref name="fisher2016" /> It is also possible for a person to be "in love" with somebody they do not like, or who treats them poorly.<ref name="Hatfield 1985 103–105">{{harvnb|Hatfield|Walster|1985|pp=103–105}}</ref> Fisher's team proposes that romantic love is a "positive addiction" (i.e. not harmful) when requited and a "negative addiction" when unrequited or inappropriate.<ref name="fisher2016" />

In brain scans of long-term romantic love (involving subjects who professed to be "madly" in love, but were together with their partner 10 years or more), attraction similar to early-stage romantic love was associated with dopamine reward center activity ("wanting"), but long-term [[Attachment theory|attachment]] was associated with the [[Globus pallidus|globus palludus]], a site for [[opioid|opiate]] receptors identified as a hedonic hotspot ("liking"). Long-term romantic lovers also showed lower levels of obsession compared to those in the early stage.<ref name=":42">{{Cite journal |last1=Acevedo |first1=Bianca |last2=Aron |first2=Arthur |last3=Fisher |first3=Helen |last4=Brown |first4=Lucy |date=5 January 2011 |title=Neural correlates of long-term intense romantic love |url=https://academic.oup.com/scan/article/7/2/145/1622197 |journal=[[Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience]] |volume=7 |issue=2 |pages=145–159 |doi=10.1093/scan/nsq092 |pmc=3277362 |pmid=21208991}}</ref><ref name="acevedo2009" />

For a person in limerence that goes unrequited, the pleasurable aspects tend to diminish over time, with the person becoming lovesick and the addiction being maintained more by avoidance of the pain of separation.<ref name="tallis-addict"/><ref>{{harvnb|Tennov|1999|pp=82-106}}</ref><ref name="thelovedrug"/><ref name="ethnopharma"/>