Breaking up is hard to do. If drugs could ease the pain, when should we use them, asks neuro-ethicist Brian D. Earp.

For your research, how do you define love?

We tend to think of love as a phenomenon grounded in ancient neurochemical systems that evolved for our ancestors’ reproductive needs. There is more to our experience of love than brain chemistry, of course, but those brain-level phenomena play a central role.

The idea of love as a drug is a cliché, but does it have any characteristics of addiction?

Recent brain studies show extensive parallels between the effects of certain addictive drugs and experiences of being in love. Both activate the brain’s reward system, can overwhelm us so that we forget about other things and can inspire withdrawal when they are no longer available. It seems it isn’t just a cliché that love is like a drug: in terms of effects on the brain, they may be neurochemically equivalent.

You have written about the possibility of using “anti-love biotechnology” as a treatment. When would it be warranted?

The idea of treating someone for an addiction to a bad relationship is something to be very cautious about. So we end up stacking the cards in favour of autonomy – the voluntary use of any “anti-love” intervention.