If you’ve ever wondered if you were in love or just in lust, you’ll want to thank science today. Scientists at Concordia University, for the first time ever, developed a study to map where sexual desire and love live in the brain and their patterns of activation. (Doesn’t it kind of blow your love/lust-ridden mind that nobody has done this before?)

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They found that love and sexual desire activate different parts of the striatum. Stuff that’s inherently pleasurable, like sex and food, spark sexual desire. And love is usually activated by things paired with reward or pleasure that are more value. So while feelings of sexual desire develop into love, they are being processed in different places in the brain.

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To put it simply, ”Love is actually a habit that is formed from sexual desire as desire is rewarded,” said study researcher Jim Pfaus.

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This seems pretty revolutionary to me. You might lust after the person you’re seeing now, but you might fall in love with them when they start activating a different part of your brain. Same thing goes with French fries, I guess.

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