Ph.D. neuroscience candidate Shannon Odell hosts a Neuroscience Inverse program, Your Brain on Blank, to explain how various things (caffeine, chocolate, sex) affect the brain. Her latest episode focuses on kittens, which she argues people just can’t not love.

“What is it about kittens that makes us love them so much?” she asks.

Part of it is because of the mechanism in human brains scientists call “baby schema,” the desire to love, protect and care for babies. Another has to do with their purring, and interesting facts about kittens’ preferences for women over men, and their overall attitude towards people.

Is she right?

The episode was made possible by the help of the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA).