Brain Structures

1. The 3 brain structures which I have chosen are the Amygdala, Hippocampus and the Hypothalamus. Firstly, the Amygdala is responsible for emotional responses like sexual desire and love (Stannard, 2011) and is also involved in emotional awareness and expression through connections with a variety of brain areas (Costa et al., 2010). Hence, I think that through the Amygdalae, an individual could perceive an emotion of love for another and feel that he is 'falling in love'. The Amygdala is also involved in the discrimination of objects necessary for one's survival, such as food and mates (King, 2011). Therefore, I think that the Amygdala could allow one to distinguish a potential mate and amplify the feeling of 'falling in love' as finding a mate is necessary for the organism's survival. Next, the Hippocampus is part of the limbic system and is involved in memory processing. The Hippocampus also interacts with the Amygdala when one's memories involve emotions (Stannard, 2011). Hence, I think that the Hippocampus allows one to remember the memory of 'falling in love' and tie it with emotions to ensure the feeling is encoded well, allowing one to recall effectively the feeling of 'falling in love'. Studies showed neural activity in the Posterior Hippocampus of individuals who have recently fallen in love (Durayappah, 2011). Hence, I think this shows the involvement of the Hippocampus in the process of 'falling in love' as this part of the brain is activated during this process and could be essential to it. Lastly, the Hypothalamus monitors sex, emotion, reward and regulates the pituitary gland (King, 2011). Gilmartin discusses that when an individual perceives romantic attraction, the regulation of the pituitary gland by the Hypothalamus causes sex glands to secrete hormones. Neural pathways around the Hypothalamus will also produce chemicals which give an individual the feeling of 'falling in love' (Gilmartin, 1987). This leads me to think that the Hypothalamus is critical to the process of 'falling in love' as the chemicals involved in this particular process are caused by it. Furthermore, feelings of love have been credited to hormones, with the Hypothalamus being the bridge between the nervous system and the endocrine system.

2. I think that he should choose to lose his Hippocampus to have the least impact on the feelings he has for the lady in red. Losing his Hippocampus would not cause the man to have retrograde amnesia, allowing him to retain the memory of seeing the lady in red dress at the MRT and experience the emotions tied to that particular memory. This is especially so as the limbic system does not store memories. Although the posterior Hippocampus is compromised and would not be activated in the process of 'falling in love', the loss of the Hippocampus would still have the least impact compared to the loss of the Amygdala or the Hypothalamus.