Recently broke up and feeling “broken” heart? The physical pain you feel may have a medical explanation.

Takotsubo cardiomyopathy, also known as “broken heart syndrome”, is a temporary heart condition caused by extreme emotional stress or physical exertion.

A study from the Stanford University School of Medicine in the US found that people in love have extremely high levels of dopamine in the brain, which is responsible for their good mood. But as it turns out, dopamine, and the pleasurable rewards it evokes, influence how we experience pain.

Broken heart syndrome, also called takatsubo, is a pathological condition of heart failure, the doctor explains. Elena Gadri, cardiologist, in an interview with the BBC. “About 90% of patients are women. Maybe women are more emotional and more prone to Takatsubo syndrome,” she says.

Gadry notes that the limbic system of the human brain in people with broken heart syndrome has a low level of connectivity. “They seem to have difficulty controlling their normal response to intense stress or deep emotional pain.”

For a long time, people with Takatsubo were not properly diagnosed. After the investigation, the number of reported incidents increased. Scientists have shown that the area of ​​the brain in the frontal cortex responds to the sensation of physical pain as well as to emotional pain.

When psychologists asked study participants to rate types of emotional and physical pain, separation pain was rated as acute, like contractions without painkillers and a ‘trial’ of chemotherapy, according to the BBC.

Takatsubo syndrome is associated with even a slight change in the shape of the heart, which becomes more elongated. It was discovered in Japan in the 1990s when patients complained of heart attack-like symptoms despite no other cause.