Larry Young, who studied the chemistry of love, dies at 56
Professor Young's experiments with prairie voles revealed what poets never could: how the brain processes that fluttering feeling in the heart.
Prairie voles are stocky rodents and Olympian tunnel borers that surface in grassy areas to feast on grass, roots and seeds with their chisel-shaped teeth, causing migraines in farmers and gardeners.
But for Larry Young, they were the secret to understanding romance and love.< /p>
Professor Young, a neuroscientist at Emory University in Atlanta, used prairie voles. in a series of experiments that revealed the chemical process of the pirouette of thrilling emotions that poets have tried to put into words for centuries.
He died on March 21 in Tsukuba, Japan, where he helped organize a scientific conference. He was 56 years old. His wife, Anne Murphy, said the cause was a heart attack.
With their bulging eyes, thick tails and sharp claws, prairie voles are not not really cuddly. . But among rodents, they are uniquely domestic: they are monogamous, and males and females form a family unit to raise their offspring together.
« Prairie voles "If you take away from their partner, they exhibit behavior similar to depression," Professor Young told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution in 2009. "It's almost like there's a withdrawal from their partner. »
This made them ideal for laboratory studies examining the chemistry of love.
We are having difficulty retrieving the content of the article.< /p>
Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.
Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode, please exit and log in to your Times account, or subscribe to the entire Times.
Professor Young's experiments with prairie voles revealed what poets never could: how the brain processes that fluttering feeling in the heart.
Prairie voles are stocky rodents and Olympian tunnel borers that surface in grassy areas to feast on grass, roots and seeds with their chisel-shaped teeth, causing migraines in farmers and gardeners.
But for Larry Young, they were the secret to understanding romance and love.< /p>
Professor Young, a neuroscientist at Emory University in Atlanta, used prairie voles. in a series of experiments that revealed the chemical process of the pirouette of thrilling emotions that poets have tried to put into words for centuries.
He died on March 21 in Tsukuba, Japan, where he helped organize a scientific conference. He was 56 years old. His wife, Anne Murphy, said the cause was a heart attack.
With their bulging eyes, thick tails and sharp claws, prairie voles are not not really cuddly. . But among rodents, they are uniquely domestic: they are monogamous, and males and females form a family unit to raise their offspring together.
« Prairie voles "If you take away from their partner, they exhibit behavior similar to depression," Professor Young told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution in 2009. "It's almost like there's a withdrawal from their partner. »
This made them ideal for laboratory studies examining the chemistry of love.
We are having difficulty retrieving the content of the article.< /p>
Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.
Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode, please exit and log in to your Times account, or subscribe to the entire Times.
What's Your Reaction?
