For The Love of Brain Systems

Ok, so this was the lecture we've all been waiting for and may I say that it did not disappoint. Dr. Brown was a very enigmatic and clever lecturer, she presented her information with such a refreshing excitement that I couldn't help but to feel more engaged in the further she got along. I suppose its a strange way to look at things but like with Dr. Freund the more excited that she got about her own research the more excited I got for her after all its very rare that in the field of neuroscience that someone can get away with building a body of research on brain phenomena related to love and desire, its actually relatively unheard of.  What makes Dr. Browns research so interesting is the premise that its based on, it basically says love and desire are real things and they are important to the overall quality of human life, unlike many areas of science which like to water it down to a simple mating mechanism. So now that shes spent a majority of her professional career solidifying the science behind what makes us tick, what have we learned from it? From her studies in early stage intense romantic love or the honeymoon and courting period as I like to call it, I couldn't help but to wonder if there were better implications for this kind of research except dealing with late stage fading romantic love. For example the kind of stimulus and brain scans tests that she performed could be used to differentiate the traditionally different forms of love that we have all been taught about  (Philia, eros, stroge, and agape) and therefore might be used to better tailor marriage counseling techniques towards shifting the subconscious views of ones mate from a friend/enemy complex and back over to the passionate romantic love that we all want in our lives. Dr. Brown noted that there was an interesting overlap in some individuals in her studies of sexual arousal and romantic  love, but that it was a few isolated cases. I cant help but to wonder if that is the byproduct of negative conditioning around what is deemed the acceptable nature of love, a personality survey could help clear up some of that confusion, if the individuals stated views of love deeply involve sexual feeling then naturally they're brain scans will indicate both arousal and romantic love firing off at the same time. That area of her research could also be explored further to delve into the different kinds of sexualities, such as asexual individuals. If an individual is truly and naturally asexual (meaning not caused by some altering incident) then they should be capable of romantic responses but not arousal stimuli, and in a person with an aversion to sex for negative reasons their scans should indicate both mild arousal and disgust. Dr. Brown also stated that her findings indicate that the core system of romance is related to vital need and the reward and drive area of the brain, so my question comes to mind "could a stalker be created?" On a general research level there have been plenty of studies in which the hypothalamus of some poor lab animal is assaulted to simulate a condition called hyperphagia, or insatiable hunger, and this is done with relative ease in a lab setting. If a condition like hyperphagia can be recreated multiple times over then you could easily alter other areas of the brain that keep lovers scoring at the top of the passionate love scale from toppling down the dark side of affection. Therefore if the reward and drive area of the brain associated with romantic love and inhibition of social actions was altered then a stalkerish like behavior could be simulated and perhaps lead to the discovery of abnormal neural morphology in certain categories of sex offenders. So who said love research isn't valuable?