The Behavioral Medicine Report

Using advanced tools to see the human brain at work, a new generation of marketing experts may be able to test a product’s appeal while it is still being designed, according to a new analysis by two researchers at Duke University and Emory University. So-called “neuromarketing” takes the tools of modern brain science, like the functional MRI, and applies them to the somewhat abstract likes and dislikes of customer decision-making. (read the full story)

The human brain is a big believer in equality – and a team of scientists from the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) and Trinity College in Dublin, Ireland, has become the first to gather the images to prove it. Specifically, the team found that the reward centers in the human brain respond more strongly when a poor person receives a financial reward than when a rich person does. The surprising thing? This activity pattern holds true even if the brain being looked at is in the rich person’s head, rather than the poor person’s. (continue reading)