Helen

Fisher, H, A Aron, D Mashek, G Strong, H Li and L L Brown (2002)
Archives of Sexual Behavior, October 31# 5: 413-9.

Mammals and birds have evolved three primary, discrete, iterrelated emotion-motivation systems in the brain for mating, reproduction, and parenting: lust, attraction, and male-female attachment. Each emotion-motivation system is associated with a specific constellation of neural correlates and a distinct behavioral repertoire. Lust evolved to initate the mating process with any appropriate partner; attraction evolved to enable individuals to choose among and prefer specific mating partners, thereby conserving their mating time and energy; male-female attachement evolved to enaele individuals to cooperate with a reproductive mate until species-specific parental duties have been completed. The evolution of these three emotion-motivation systems contribute to contemporary patterns of marriage, adultery, divorce, remarriage, stalking, homicide and other crimes of passion, and clinical depression due to romantic rejection. This article defines these three emotion-motivation systems. Then it discusses an ongoing project using functional magnetic resonance imaging of the brain to investigate the neural circuits associated with one of these emotion-motivation systems, romantic attraction.

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Fisher, H (2002)
Hastings Women’s Law Journal, Hastings College of the Law, University of California, 13#1:21-29.

The sex slave trade has been in existence for at least two thousand years. In the sixth century A.D. the Roman emperor Justinian wrote of this phenomenon saying that profiteers throughout Europe were taking advantage of inexperienced girls — seducing them with fine clothes, money and promises of marriage, then placing them in brothels and forcing them to sign contracts to remain there for a period of time.

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Fisher, H (1998)
Human Nature 9#1:23-52.

This paper proposes that mammals exhibit three primary emotion categories for mating and reproduction: (1) the sex drive, or lust, characterized by the craving for sexual gratification; (2) attraction, characterized by increased energy and focused attention on one or more potential mates, accompanied in humans by feelings of exhilaration, “intrusive thinking” about a mate, and the craving for emotional union with this mate or potential mate; and (3) attachment, characterized by the maintenance of close social contact in mammals, accompanied in humans by feelings of calm, comfort, and emotional union with a mate. Each emotion category is associated with a discrete constellation of neural correlates, and each evolved to direct a specific aspect of reproduction. The sex drive is associated primarily with the estrogens and androgens; it evolved to motivate individuals to focus their mating effort on preferred partners. The attachment system is associated primarily with the peptides, vasopressin, and oxytocin; it evolved to motivate individuals to engage in positive social behaviors and assume species-specific parental duties.

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Fisher, HE (1994)
The Journal of NIH Research 6#4:59-64. Reprinted in Annual Editions: Physical Anthropology, Spring 1995

Romantic love (characterized by at least two emotional stages, attraction and attachment) is a cultural universal. I propose that the human neurophysiology for these emotions evolved in our first hominid forebears some 4 million years ago as chemical mechanisms designed to initiate affiliation and sustain ancestral pair bonds through the infancy of a single altricial (helpless) child, a period of about four years. Serial monogamy during reproductive years has had adaptive advantages throughout human evolution, and natural selection has resulted in primary human mating behaviors that are still visible in worldwide patterns of marriage, divorce, and remarriage, as well as in the characteristic ebb and flow of human romantic love.

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