They say men are from Mars and women from Venus, but the two become more alike when they fall in love, according to a team of Italian scientists.
Gender-bending changes occur in members of both sexes when they are pierced by Cupid's arrow, a new study has shown.
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Men in love experience a drop in levels of the male hormone testosterone.
But in love-struck women the reverse happens. Their levels of the hormone, which increases aggression and sex drive, go up.
The phenomenon remains a mystery
The effect was discovered by Italian scientists who measured the hormone levels of 12 men and 12 women who said they had fallen in love in the past six months.
Why it happens remains a mystery.
Donatella Marazziti, who led the team from the University of Pisa, told New Scientist magazine: "Men, in some way, had become more like women, and women had become like men.
"It's as if nature wants to eliminate what can be different in men and women, because it's more important to survive and mate at this stage."
The scientists also found increased levels of the stress hormone cortisone in men and women in love, indicating that courtship can be stressful.
An increase in serotonin levels
Results from the newly smitten volunteers were compared with hormone measurements from another 24 men and women who were either single or in stable long-term relationships.
In 1999 the same team found that levels of the brain chemical serotonin, which has a calming effect, falls below normal in people who say they are in love, as well as those suffering from obsessive compulsive disorder.
Both groups spend large amounts of time obsessing about something or someone. Andreas Bartels, from University College London, questioned the new results, saying that the hormonal changes could simply be the result of increased sexual activity.
The role of increased sexual activity
"There's a high degree of affection, but there's also, without any doubt, extremely high sexual activity," he told New Scientist.
However, Marazziti pointed out that in her study control group participants had sex just as often as those in the "in love" group.
Furthermore, other studies suggested that testosterone levels in men rise as sexual activity increases. If the hormonal changes were just the result of sex, testosterone levels would be expected to rise in men, not fall.
The change doesn't last very long
The hormonal changes only last as long as the state of blissful romantic love, Marazziti found - which does not appear to be very long.
When she re-tested the same volunteers one or two years later, their hormone levels had returned to normal. – (Sapa-dpa)
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