In this post, Mark Thoma passes along some research findings from brain scans.

The pleasure of orgasm, the high from cocaine, the rush of buying Google Inc. at $450 a share — the same neural network governs all three

I once heard a tape where the speaker said that in the Buddhist tradition there is a single harmful emotion that is lust and greed–the claim being that you cannot have one without the other. I guess that modern science confirms this ancient wisdom.