What is love? With half of American marriages ending in divorce, and infidelity being widespread, Science Vs asks: have we been lied to by our love songs?
On today’s episode we explore: What happens to the brain when we fall in love? Is the compulsion to stay together biological? And, is monogamy really unnatural? We talk to Dr. Helen Fisher, Professor Larry Young, and Dr. Dieter Lukas about their labors of love.

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Credits:

This episode has been produced by Wendy Zukerman, Heather Rogers, Ben Kuebrich, Shruti Ravindran and Rose Reid. Kaitlyn Sawrey is our senior producer. We’re edited by Annie Rose Strasser. Extra editorial help from Alex Blumberg. Production assistance from Stevie Lane. Fact checking by Ben Kuebrich. Music production and original music written by Bobby Lord. Special thanks to Joseph Lavelle Wilson, Austin Mitchell and to Professor Karen L Kramer, Professor Garth Fletcher, Dr. Alexander G. Ophir, Professor David Barash, Richard Bethleham .

Selected References:

• CDC - Data on First Marriages in the United States
• Helen Fisher fMRI Paper on Early-Stage Love
• Larry Young Review Paper on the Neurobiology of Pair Bonding
• Dieter Lukas’s Paper on the Evolution of Monogamy in Mammals
• The monogamy camp - review paper arguing “we evolved to be monogamous”