More psychologists playing around with brain scans:
Love and hate are intimately linked within the human brain, according to a study that has discovered the biological basis for the two most intense emotions.
Discovered the biological basis, in this case, means found parts of the brain that were active in both cases. Doesn't sound as good though.
Scientists studying the physical nature of hate have found that some of the nervous circuits in the brain responsible for it are the same as those that are used during the feeling of romantic love – although love and hate appear to be polar opposites.
Well that's a paradox and no mistake.
A study using a brain scanner to investigate the neural circuits that become active when people look at a photograph of someone they say they hate has found that the "hate circuit" shares something in common with the love circuit.
Could it be - just a thought - that rather than a "hate circuit" and a "love circuit", which, extraordinarily, share something in common, they've found an "emotion circuit"? Too late though: the psychologists are already out of the blocks and halfway up the track with their excited speculations:
The findings could explain why both hate and romantic love can result in similar acts of extreme behaviour – both heroic and evil – said Professor Semir Zeki of University College London, who led the study published in the on-line journal PloS ONE.
"Hate is often considered to be an evil passion that should, in a better world, be tamed, controlled and eradicated. Yet to the biologist, hate is a passion that is of equal interest to love," Professor Zeki said.
"Like love, it is often seemingly irrational and can lead individual to heroic and evil deeds. How can two opposite sentiments lead to the same behaviour?"
How indeed. No doubt they'll find the answer by doing more - lots more - brain scans. And, in case someone's wondering if all this research has any practical applications, why, certainly it has:
"Interestingly, the activity of some of these structures in response to a hated face is proportional in strength to the declared intensity of hate, thus allowing the subjective state of hate to be objectively quantified. This finding may have implications in criminal cases."
Oh dear. "Yes, there were signs of a break-in, m'lud, but given the defendant's brain scan showed strong levels of hatred towards the deceased, of a strength correlated with murderous impulses, we maintain that they were a red herring, and that the defendant is guilty as charged.
But, surely, she was his wife. He says he loved her. Can you be sure it's hatred you're measuring?
Absolutely. This is a thoroughly objective and scientific measurement. A brain scan doesn't lie."
[Previous brain scan larks here and here]