Don: I'm trying to write a poem to my sweetheart. Can you think of a good metaphor      for love?

Yael: How about hunger or thirst?

D: I don't know about that. I was thinking something like love is a rose, except less      cliché.

Y: You must be talking about a later stage of romantic love because that metaphor is      entirely off target when it's very early love that we're talking about.

D: And hunger or thirst IS on target for early love? Are you saying that our need for love      is as basic as our needs for food and water?

Y: Something like that. When we're craving things like food, water, or drugs, or      anticipating getting them, two areas deep within the brain, the ventral tegmental area      and caudate nucleus, are active. A neurochemical called dopamine is released from      the ventral tegmental area into the caudate nucleus. Neuroscientists have produced      brain scan images of the brains of people falling in love, when they're feeling the      passion of a very new relationship that has yet to become comfortable and secure.      What they found is that the brain in love looks a lot like the brain craving or      anticipating things like food or drugs. The same areas of the brain are active.      Interestingly, this region is located in a different area of the brain from the region      associated with determining physical attractiveness.

D: You mean that our brain makes a distinction between simply finding someone      attractive and being mad about them, as they say?

Y: Yes. That these emotions activate completely different parts of the brain suggests that      romantic love doesn't just feel different than sexual attraction, but that our brains      register these as two different urges.  

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