Romantic and Parental Love - NYTimes.com Re "I Heart Unpredictable Love," by Richard A. Friedman (Sunday Review, Nov. 4): As a psychoanalyst interested in the integration of neuroscience and psychoanalysis, I found that the article stimulated further reflections on evolutionary biology and on the role of reward in modern psychoanalytic theory of the mind. Romantic love and parental love often bypass awareness of unpredictability, are sustained by reward and facilitate genetic transmission. The cited study of 17 subjects compared brain neuroimagings of lovers and of mothers with their newborns. Both groups similarly activated a unique reward network and deactivated connections for critical judgment and negative emotions. These processes in modern psychoanalytic theory relate to "mentalization": how we assess other people's emotions and intentions and how we represent ourselves. Love empowers, excites and bonds by systematic stimulation of the reward circuitry. Finally, when we are in love, recognizing that another is in love with us rewards us. The writer is a psychiatrist.