tenuous at best

You know that intense rush you get when you first fall in love? It's actually the ventra tegmental flooding the caudate with dopamine. Funnily enough this is same system that activates when someone takes cocaine.

There have been a few recent developments that have started to shed some light on how and why humans (unlike most other mammals) love. According to Dr. Lucy Brown at Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York different areas of the brain activate when someone is in love and when they lust. When in love Dr Brown suggests that the caudate area of the brain becomes active. This area is usually associated with cravings. When someone lusts the hypothalamus and amygdala areas of the brain activate. The hypothalamus is the area of the brain that controls hunger and thirst and the amygdale controls arousal. Further down the line, the feelings of love start to merge as the increased levels of dopamine produce more testosterone which leads to feelings of lust.

There you have it! Please kids, stay in school and don't use love; it's only for criminal defence lawyers and music producers!

A couple of articles that touch on this research.

This one goes into the differences between the male and female brain and why from an evolutionary perspective we love (males: spreading the seed; females: security when females had to roam the planes of Africa with a baby).

http://edition.cnn.com/2007/HEALTH/02/14/love.science/index.html

This is quite a good gonzo story on the topic. The author is trying to find out if he loves his wife:

http://www.esquire.com/features/mri-of-love-b0609