Story by Kimberly Marselas
Illustrations by Catherine Nichols

There’s still much to learn about pheromones, those silent chemical messages exchanged by members of the opposite sex, and how they interact with the so-called cranial nerve zero Fields studies.

For starters, many scientists and medical professionals don’t even know nerve zero exists. It’s not pictured in most anatomy texts, and there is no ethical way to test whether the nerve, at the very top of the brain, controls sexual impulses in healthy humans. Fields’ theory, based on his work in whales and previous studies on other animals, is that nerve zero directs non-smelling olfactory signals directly to the part of the brain involved in sexual reproduction.

But even with the help of nerve zero, pheromones won’t win over your intended just because the label on a bottle tells you so. There’s no scientific evidence that colognes containing copulin or androstenone (code for rhesus monkey pheromone or boar saliva) or any other animal pheromones are akin to Cupid’s arrow.

“There are more aspects to it,” says Fields, an adjunct professor and chief of the Nervous System and Plasticity Section at the National Institute of Child Health & Human Development. “[Lust] is not going to be triggered by just one stimulus. Humans are much more complicated than that.”

Fields is among the many Maryland researchers who put relationships under a microscope—sometimes literally—to figure out why people fall in love, the best ways to sustain healthy relationships and how cultural expectations influence love connections. When dissecting whale brains, literary classics or spending patterns, researchers who dabble in love find that media and the public devour their work.

Nerve zero, a relative unknown a few years ago, now even has its own Wikipedia page.

“The appeal of the story is that it is about a very compelling subject,” says Fields. “But it is also a fascinating science adventure/mystery story.”

Courtship
Even if falling in love has it roots in the brain, it’s not always the smartest thing to do. Literature is packed with examples of torrid, passion-fueled romances, as well as characters tortured by longing. In books, as in life, love often fades to boredom, disdain and even hate.

“Shakespeare lets us in on that from the very beginning,” says English professor Michael Olmert ’62, ’80 Ph.D., an Emmy-award winning writer who teaches the greats from Beowulf to the Bard. “He describes love in very violent terms, writes of love exploding.” In “Romeo and Juliet,” Romeo deplores the “heavy lightness” and “cold fire” that grip him—a series of oxymorons that capture love’s two-sided tendencies.

While Olmert mines literature for cultural significance, he also uses it to teach students what to demand in their love lives. At a time when many are focused on physical appearance and instant attraction, he points out Shakespeare’s celebration of an ordinary woman.

“He spends 12 lines outlining how she’s not Cindy Crawford, and then two lines saying why this love is the best,” says Olmert, referencing Sonnet 130. Besides, true passion is wanting encyclopedic knowledge of your lover. “If your boyfriend doesn’t know what your middle name is, you need a new boyfriend,” Olmert tells his students. Same rule applies for eye color.

Even the ancients captured the arc of all-consuming romantic love. In Greek mythology, Aphrodite experiences violent, powerful love but then dies before it can mellow and mature.

“That’s the tragedy of Aphrodite,” Olmert says. “Although she has this very youthful love, it can’t continue.”

The Smell of Love in the Wild Scent is a powerful communication tool in the animal word. Here, how a few species put pheromones to work for them:

Male Lemurs Urine from dominant male lemurs suppresses sexual activity in subordinate males by depressing their testosterone levels.

Prairie Voles Dominant females’ pheromones suppress reproduction by subordinate females.

Parasitic Wasps They prey on aphids by detecting the sex pheromones of female aphids.

Bola Spiders Release a female moth sex pheromone to lure male moths as prey.

Honey Bees Individuals release alarm pheromones when they sting, which attract other bees to attack.

Garter Snakes Males release female sex pheromones to trick other males into expending sexual energy fruitlessly.

Sources: R. Douglas Fields; Scientific American Mind; Pheromones and Animal Behavior, by Tristram D. Wyatt.

Commitment
So how do couples make the transition into the glorious “autumnal” love celebrated by 17th century English poet John Donne? That’s a question for couples therapists, whose offices are laboratories where they continue to find ways to help bring damaged relationships back from the brink. After 24 years in the business, Norm Epstein often begins with a simple technique: he asks couples to reminisce about how they met and what first attracted them to each other.

“A lot of people gradually let things slide and don’t see it happening,” says Epstein, director of the Marriage and Family Therapy program at the University of Maryland School of Public Health. “You have to pay close attention to what’s changed. You can’t take love for granted.”

A therapist can help couples in crisis identify and change troubling patterns. For those thinking of marriage, research proves that increasingly popular pre-marriage counseling leads to increased marital satisfaction and fewer divorces.

“It’s a good idea for couples to take a look at their areas of strength, their compatibility, but also their vulnerabilities,” Epstein says. “Sometimes a couple doesn’t really have issues until they get to a later point in life. Some of the things can be anticipated if they’re thought out and discussed beforehand.”

Religious officials or independent therapists may ask couples to complete inventories describing their communication styles and personal preferences on a range of issues: how they argue, how often they want sex and how they’ll divide household tasks like taking out the garbage.

Once those problems arise in marriage, they can fester and feed into larger issues. Therapists work with couples to find the root causes, and two evolving approaches offer promising results.

Cognitive-behavioral therapy —the subject of a large research study Epstein is running on those who’ve suffered psychological or physical abuse—contrasts a couple’s communication and routine behaviors with each partner’s beliefs about how relationships ought to work. Does one person expect to spend all the time with their partner? Does the other need more time alone? Does one feel the relationship is collapsing while the other is blissfully happy? In therapy, the partners can safely talk about their different expectations and how those may be influencing their reality.

Emotionally focused therapy focuses on the need for intimate, close attachment. Epstein helps couples examine how they may be letting each other down: do they withdraw when rejected or do they continue to press for more attention? “We can offer constructive ways to get closer,” Epstein says. “These techniques have been shown to reduce stress and increase positive outcomes.”

Commercialism
Love and stress can seem synonymous at times, no more so than when shopping for the ideal gift by February 14. Market researchers have perfected the science for understanding holiday shopping patterns, and the Robert H. Smith School of Business’ Jie Zhang knows her stuff. An expert on pricing and promotions, she knows what retailers will do to seduce you into spending big bucks to prove you love someone.

Her personal opinion?
“I think the holiday has been pushed to the extent that it’s not about love anymore,” she says. “It’s about buying the biggest gift—it’s about bragging rights.”

Her professional observations?
Retailers gravitate toward two major marketing strategies when Cupid’s involved. Some go for the traditional, touchy-feely ads á la Hallmark. Others opt for the guilt trip, like the TV and radio spot running prominently in D.C. in which a group of women gush about the size of their friend’s ring.

Either way, the advertising is working. About two-thirds of Americans celebrated Valentine’s Day in 2007, spending an estimated $16.9 billion, according to the National Retail Federation. And while the focus used to be on just a gift, now there’s an increasing tendency to fork over cash for chocolates and an expensive night on the town.

“It’s a social norm,” Zhang says. “Retailers in this country have done a good job of instilling in people a kind of guilt. It’s like a crime if you don’t at least bring something home.”

But Epstein points out that people have different ideas about what constitutes a romantic gesture. Some settle for nothing less than a dozen long-stemmed roses and gems, while others prefer their partner leave a love note in their briefcase or take on extra responsibilities at home.

“Romance,” he says, “is so much an interpretive thing.”

Just don’t expect anyone to interpret that doe-in-heat spray as the smell of true love. TERP

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