At Last -- A Love Potion????

For centuries artists have tried to capture the essence of love, and now scientists may have found it in the brain. Known as oxytocin (from the Latin word for "quick birth"), the naturally occurring hormone is best known for controlling contractions during labor, but it also plays a key role in other fundamental human urges — including the desire to connect with others. "Somehow, the peptide increases trust, or alters the way individuals see each other," says Tom Insel, director of the National Institute for Mental Health.

Without oxytocin people would be far less inclined to seek social interaction, let alone fall in love and mate for life (or, as scientists call it, "pair bond"). The brain releases gobs of it during orgasm, mothers are awash in it during breastfeeding and, in clinical trials, a spritz of oxytocin has been shown to reduce anxiety, increase feelings of generosity and even ease the symptoms of shyness.

For the oxytocin-deficient among us, the hormone is commercially available on the Internet in the form of a nasal spray. But some entrepreneurs are already touting oxytocin as a shyness cure. One website hawks a "trust elixir," an oxytocin-laced perfume that its manufacturers say will make its wearers seem more trustworthy to others — and vice versa.

There's no telling whether it works — products like these aren't classified as drugs, so they aren't evaluated by the FDA — but, at least in theory, it ought to make love or lust or trust bloom a little faster.