Dr. Fisher would agree with Ms. Mays’s technique: She suggests treating the recovery process like you would an addiction, and throw out the cards and letters and keepsakes that remind you of the person. Don’t maintain contact or ask mutual friends how that person is doing. “You’re just raising the ghost,” she said.

Dr. Fisher, who put 17 people who had just been dumped through brain scanners, found activity both in the V.T.A. and in brain functions linked to attachment and physical pain. “Not the anxiety linked to physical pain, but physical pain,” she said.

Dr. Langeslag also said there is hope for the heartbroken. She ran two studies to see if people could try to make themselves feel less in love. The strategies that worked? First, it helps to think negative thoughts about the person you are trying to fall out of love with. The downside? “Thinking negatively makes you feel less in love, but doesn’t make you feel any better,” Dr. Langeslag said. “Worse, actually.”