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3.2: Love Is a Dance of Brains: How Attachment Wires Our Nervous Systems

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3.2: Love Is a Dance of Brains: How Attachment Wires Our Nervous Systems

What exactly happens in the deep connection between a mother and her child? The researcher and psychoanalyst Allan Schore explored this question from a neuroscientific perspective and described what we call love and attachment as concrete biological processes. For him, the healthy development of a baby during the first two years depends directly on this loving bond.

Love as Synchronization

Schore describes mother-child love as a right-hemisphere-to-right-hemisphere relationship—a regulatory exchange in which the brains and bodies of mother and child continually attune to and influence one another. Love, in this sense, is where synchronization happens. Studies show that in healthy attachment interactions, both right hemispheres are far more active than the left. The oscillations of the brain hemispheres, breathing rhythms, and facial expressions literally synchronize. It’s an implicit dance from body to body, hemisphere to hemisphere.

The Wiring of Regulation

This “dance” is far more than a touching moment. Through this synchronization, the foundations of self-regulation are wired directly into the right hemisphere and the autonomic nervous system. The vagus nerve—which plays a central role in calming, safety, and social engagement (polyvagal theory)—is primarily anchored in the right brain. A child’s ability to regulate itself or be co-regulated by others thus depends on the wiring between the right hemisphere, the vagus nerve, and the body. Relationship patterns and emotional literacy are formed in exactly this process.

"Quiet Love" and "Excited Love": Regulation in Practice

Allan Schore describes two recurring regulatory modes in the parent-child interaction:

  • Quiet Love: This occurs when a child is highly activated—crying, angry, or overwhelmed. The parent soothes and helps the child return to connection. Studies show that mothers often hold their babies on the left side, making right-eye-to-right-eye contact—a direct right-hemispheric connection. Through these repeated experiences, the child’s nervous system learns to calm itself from stress (down-regulation).

  • Excited Love: Just as important is the ability to join the child in joy. When the child is lively and excited, the parent matches that energy and celebrates with them—the shared “Yay!” moments. This allows the child to anchor states of vitality and happiness in their system (up-regulation).

The ongoing interplay of these two forms of love creates the foundation for a stable and regulated nervous system. Love, therefore, is not a passive emotion but an active, biological process that wires the core patterns of safety, regulation, and relational capacity into our being.

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