They are as capable of love as any other animal, except other humans.  Humans have the title when it come to complex emotions, and what is more complex than love?

It’s been shown via MRI scan that love is really two different emotions.

• That puppy love a 6th grader feels when they have their first crush.

• An intellectual love like a adult child feels for their parents, or spouses feel or parents and children.

They activate and use different parts of the brain.  Of course there is a spectrum in between for most people.   As with most emotions.  But they should be distinguishable via MRI.

The former is of course the simple primitive bliss.   Sex (as Freud suggested even if we are too young to recognize it early on) and food are primary drivers.  So of course any animal can experience bliss resulting from mating or the near term potential to do so.

The more complex love I would say they can’t experience it.  One marked exception may be immediate family.   Some sort of base loyalty?  There does seem to be something of a legitimate bond there, sometimes.  Makes sense as a tribal psychopaths would have advantages over lone ones.  Many other animals display behaviors for family loyalty, so there is a genetic precedent for sure.  Fossil records indicate early humans living in small family tribes.

This would be a great thing to test in a study.

Take MRIs of long time known empath couples looking at photos of each other and then a control photo.  Also Take MRIs of new known empaths looking at photos of each other and a control.  Do the same for psychopaths and compare.  I’d bet the long term ‘love’ photos would look quite different, where bliss may be indistinguishable.

There was a recent MRI study which indicates some couples never leave bliss.  Obviously a long term couple with bliss brain patterns could not participate.  Again this should be easily distinguishable.  Interestingly it is possible that the only successful long term relationship involving a psychopath would be the less common persistent bliss type.

So they may be telling the truth when they say they love you but not as you think of it .  Keep in mind they have no mechanism to experience the complex warm love as we can.  Bliss (or lust) sure, but we know that wears out for most.  You can bet the psychopath will not feel guilt when it does.