Love at first sight.

A new study by Yale was able to chart the neuronal response in brain when eyes of two individuals meet and social gaze interactions happens.

Steve Chang, associate professor of psychology and neuroscience and his team found that specific sets socially tuned neurons fired across the brain(s) at different time during mutual eye contact. They also discovered that the regions involved differed if the individual initiated mutual eye contact or followed the other's gaze.

Surprisingly, part of the network activated during social gaze interaction included the prefrontal cortex, the seat of higher-order learning and decision-making, as well as the amygdala, the center for emotion and valuation.

These areas in the prefrontal-amygdala networks activated during the processing of social gaze interaction are also known to be disrupted in cases of atypical social conditions, such as autism. This attests to their importance in achieving feelings of social connectedness.

It reinforces the ethological importance of social gaze interaction.

Source: Widespread implementations of interactive social gaze neurons in the primate prefrontal-amygdala networks