How deep is your love?

How deep is your love? This February, the month of love, the Stanford Center for Cognitive and Neurobiological Imaging hosted the world’s first “Love Competition.”

Researchers armed with a special fMRI machine partnered with filmmaker Brent Hoff in an attempt to gain understanding about how deeply and how differently we love.

The result was a competition between seven contestants with an age range from 10 to 75. Each person was asked to spend five minutes in an fMRI machine thinking about love.

The seven participants were asked to focus on thoughts that would elicit the deepest feelings of love in them. Each was asked to decide about what sort of love they would contemplate prior to entering the machine.

An fMRI is a specialized scan capable of mapping neural activity in the brain. In this case, the scan allowed technicians to view and measure the activity of neurotransmission and chemicals — such as dopamine — known to be associated with love.

Yes it’s science, but it’s hardly boring. The competition offers an intimate insight into love from a new perspective. We can perhaps think of love in ways we had not previously considered.

At the very least we can be reminded of the awesome wonder of love. The Love Competition is sure to warm your heart, and, you just might be surprised by the results.