Sandra Langeslag

Sandra Langeslag is a Dutch cognitive and biological psychologist who studies romantic love. Langeslag is the director of the Neurocognition of Emotion and Motivation Lab at the University of Missouri–St. Louis. She received her PhD from Erasmus University Rotterdam in The Netherlands.

Studies by Langeslag using EEG have demonstrated that self-regulating love feelings is possible, especially through a task called cognitive reappraisal. Cognitive reappraisal involves focusing on positive or negative aspects of the partner to change how one feels.

A 2012 experiment by Langeslag also contradicted a long-running hypothesis in love research which supposed that intrusive thoughts during early-stage romantic love might be caused by decreased serotonin levels. Her experiment found that serotonin levels were differently affected in men and women, and that obsessive thinking in women was actually associated with an increase in serotonin.