🧠 The Neuroscience of Love → Disgust

Dopamine & reward system (ventral tegmental area → nucleus accumbens): makes the person feel exciting, rewarding, addictive.
Oxytocin & vasopressin: bond-forming chemicals that enhance trust, closeness, and pair-bonding.
Prefrontal cortex “halo effect”: your brain literally edits reality to downplay flaws and amplify their positive qualities.
➡️ In this state, your nervous system codes them as safe, rewarding, desirable.

When the person harms you (lies, abuses, betrays), the brain experiences a prediction error: reality clashes with the stored template of “this is safe and good.”
The amygdala (threat detector) lights up, and stress hormones (cortisol, adrenaline) rise.
Now the nervous system holds two opposing maps:
- “This person = love, reward, safety.”
- “This person = danger, betrayal, threat.”
  ➡️ The brain cannot tolerate this dissonance for long.

To resolve the dissonance, the brain often mobilizes anger:
- Prefrontal cortex still engaged → “How could you do this to me?”
- Amygdala-driven → wants justice or repair.
Anger is a survival attempt to restore coherence (to make the “love map” and “threat map” align again).

Over time, the brain recruits the insula, the region tied to disgust — both physical (rotten food) and moral (betrayal, abuse).
Love circuits (dopamine, oxytocin) weaken through repeated prediction errors and stress responses.
Insula activity essentially “reclassifies” the person:
- From safe/rewarding → to contaminant/repulsive.
Neurochemically:
- Drop in dopamine (no longer rewarding).
- Cortisol spikes make bonding chemicals like oxytocin less effective.
  ➡️ The brain protects you by flipping attachment into rejection.

Disgust is more protective than neutrality.
From an evolutionary standpoint:
- Disgust keeps you away from pathogens, spoiled food, or toxic people.
- It’s an emotion of distance + contamination avoidance.
By coding the person as “disgusting,” your brain helps sever lingering attachment ties.

🌱 In Plain Terms

Love = your brain’s reward system lighting up.
Disgust = your brain’s contamination-avoidance system taking over after betrayal or harm.
The shift is your nervous system’s way of protecting you: first it protests (anger), then it ejects (disgust), so you stop returning to what once felt rewarding but is now unsafe.