Yes, you will get over being dumped — our bodies are wired to bounce back, scientists say

Your love is my drug.

Scientists have reportedly discovered the biological reason why we just can’t get enough of our partners — and how to make that feeling stop.

“What we have found, essentially, is a biological signature of desire that helps us explain why we want to be with some people more than other people,” study co-author Zoe Donaldson, an associate professor at the University of Colorado Boulder, said in an announcement this week.

Published in Current Biology, the study showed that some people leave a “unique chemical imprint on our brain,” exciting us and keeping us coming back for more — similar to addictive drugs.

The Colorado research team studied the brains of prairie voles, which are among the 3% to 5% of mammals that form monogamous pair bonds. They typically form long-term relationships, share a home, raise offspring together, and experience something similar to grief when they lose their partner.

The researchers separated voles from their partners and random voles to test how their brains responded when reunited.

When the brain detects a bit of dopamine, it “lights up like a glow stick.” But when the voles were reunited with their mates, their brains “lit up like a rave,” and continued to do so as they snuggled.

However, when the voles were put together with a stranger, the “glow stick” dimmed.

“As humans, our entire social world is basically defined by different degrees of selective desire to interact with different people, whether it’s your romantic partner or your close friends,” Donaldson said.

“This research suggests that certain people leave a unique chemical imprint on our brain that drives us to maintain these bonds over time.”

The study showed that being reunited with their loved one, fired up the nucleus accumbens, the region of the brain responsible for motivating humans to seek rewards, of any kind ranging from water to drugs.

“This suggests that not only is dopamine really important for motivating us to seek out our partner, but there’s actually more dopamine coursing through our reward center when we are with our partner than when we are with a stranger,” first author Anne Pierce, explained.

But don’t worry — time does heal all wounds, even heartbreak.

Another experiment found that the dopamine rush faded over time. The researchers separated the voles from their loved ones for four weeks — an eternity in rodent years — and found that the signature surge initially caused by seeing their partner dimmed.

Their brain only recognized their loved one just as any vole.

“We think of this as sort of a reset within the brain that allows the animal to now go on and potentially form a new bond,” Dr. Donaldson concluded.

So your friends are right — you just need time to get over your ex.

And if you’re a woman, you might need a lot less time than you think.

Women typically fall out of love before their husbands do, according to another new study, published in the Journal of the Association for Psychological Science.

“The hope is that by understanding what healthy bonds look like within the brain, we can begin to identify new therapies to help the many people with mental illnesses that affect their social world,” Donaldson said.