Rejection by a lover is a powerful negative experience that can cause people to slide into depression or commit extreme acts.

Rejection by a lover is a powerful negative experience that can cause people to slide into depression or commit extreme acts. Some people have even committed suicide or homocide in response to rejection. The research presented here helps illustrate why rejection hurts so much and where the need to be accepted by a lover originates.

The authors of the study explain that the limbic reward system involved in feelings of romantic love and rejection are associated with biological survival mechanisms and imperatives, which suggest an evolutionary link between the feeling of romantic love and the naturally selected need to pass on one’s genes. This notion is reinforced by the concurrent activity of brain centers involved in addiction.

Our brains do their utmost to convince us to reproduce, even going so far as to cause extreme emotional pain and agony when we are denied the opportunity with people we have identified as good mates. Conversely, the involvement of emotional regulation centers certainly indicates that love is more than a simple craving or biological imperative; it is a complex emotion fully integrated into our consciousnesses, the nature of which fMRI machines still cannot fully illuminate.