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Heart aflutter? Can’t get that special someone out of your head? Could it be love, or is it just a chemical cocktail of dopamine and serotonin flooding your brain?

According to scientists from the聽, while the heart gets all the attention for Valentine’s Day, the brain is the real culprit behind your butterflies.

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鈥淟ove is the result of chemical changes in the brain when we meet someone and feel that connection,鈥� UW Medicine neuroscientist Larry Zweifel said. 鈥淭here are long-term changes in our brain when we connect with someone that links us to those individuals, sometimes for life. I think that’s tremendously fascinating.鈥�

Zweifel is a professor of pharmacology, psychiatry, and behavioral sciences at the University of Washington School of Medicine. Two people 鈥榝all in love鈥� and get engaged within months, but really they鈥檙e just feeling the chemical oxytocin, UW Medicine explained.

鈥淚n terms of establishing desire, chemically speaking, first impressions are crucial,鈥� Zweifel said. 鈥淚t鈥檚 how the brain processes those initial responses and that social feedback that determines whether or not we鈥檒l engage with another individual again in the future, or whether we will do our best to avoid them.鈥�

If people see someone they like, their brain floods with serotonin, and if things keep going well, the brain will continue producing that chemical, he explained. Mixed with physical touch, which can bring oxytocin to the brain, people can become attached and form bonds.

Zweifel explained that a lack of those chemicals might leave someone feeling sad on Valentine鈥檚 Day. Chemicals can also show why people impulsively love and fight.

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鈥淧eople can be filled with a sense of dread as that date approaches, and there are many reasons why someone might feel averse to the thought,鈥� Zweifel said. 鈥淗olidays that come with high expectations can be a major source of stress.鈥�

This is not to discount the real emotional connections that people establish with each other, though, Zweifel says, but instead helps to explain the intoxicating quality that early romances tend to have.

鈥淟ove at first sight may seem like love, but it鈥檚 really just the initial surge of neurotransmitters and hormones that were driving it. It takes time to form that real connection,鈥� Zweifel said.