Page 191 - The Truth Landscape Format 2020 with next section introductions-compressed

Helen Fisher: the brain in love

Extracted from Dr Fishers excellent Red Talk
https://www.ted.com/talks/helen_fisher_the_brain_in_love

Why do we crave love so much, even to the point that we would die for it? To learn more
about our very real, very physical need for romantic love, Helen Fisher and her research
team took MRIs of people in love -- and people who had just been dumped.

I and my colleagues Art Aron and Lucy Brown and others, have put 37 people who are
madly in love into a functional MRI brain scanner. 17 who were happily in love, 15 who
had just been dumped, and we're just starting our third experiment: studying people who
report that they're still in love after 10 to 25 years of marriage. So, this is the short story
of that research.

In the jungles of Guatemala, in Tikal, stands a temple, Tikal Temple I. It was built by the grandest Sun King, of the grandest city-state, of the grandest
civilization of the Americas, the Mayas. His name was Jasaw Chan K'awiil. He stood over six feet tall. He lived into his 80s, and he was buried beneath this
monument in 720 AD. And Mayan inscriptions proclaim that he was deeply in love with his wife. So, he built a temple in her honour, facing his. (Tikal
Temple II). Every spring and autumn, exactly at the equinox, the sun rises behind his temple, and perfectly bathes her temple with his shadow. As the sun
sets behind her temple, it perfectly bathes his temple with her shadow. After 1,300 years, these two lovers still touch and kiss from their tomb.

Tikal Temple I Tikal Temple II Page191