Importance of Brain Reward System in Neuromarketing

Introduction And Background

The declaration of the new millennium as the brain century has further increased the popularity of the brain and the brain researches. In the past, brain research was carried out exclusively in the fields of medicine such as neurology, psychiatry, brain and neurosurgery, the biology of basic science and the psychology of social sciences. In this century, law, history, philosophy, various engineering fields, politics, economics, communication and ethics are joined to the neuroscience area and the period of interdisciplinary (multidisciplinary) brain studies started. Although some are challenging, new fields such as neurolaw, neurohistory, neurophilosophy, neuroengineering, neuropolitics, neuroethics and neuroeconomics have emerged and the number of interdisciplinary researches is increasing.

Recently, a new tool of marketing research called “neuromarketing” has evolved from brain researches that investigate an association with customer behaviors (i.e., decision-making processes during shopping) and brain activity. It is an adaptation of neuroscience to marketing. Neuromarketing has gained growing popularity in the academia as well as the commercial world and includes the direct use of brain imaging, scanning, or other brain activity measurement technics such as functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), positron emission tomography (PET), electroencephalography (EEG), eye tracking, pupil dilatation reflex (PDR) and magnetoencephalography (MEG) to record an individual’s response to marketing products (Javor et al., 2013; Kumar and Singh, 2015). Thus, neuromarketing is a new exciting field with great potential for application in the practical zones of marketing, brand management and advertising. Human behavior and psychology, psychiatry, neurology and some other disciplines of social sciences such as sociology, ethics, economy, management and even law have a robust connection with neuromarketing (Breiter et al., 2015).

The human brain is approximately 1.5 kg in weight and places into our skull which a safe place. It is composed of %75-80 water, more than %10 lipid and %8 protein. It is divided into two part named hemisphere, left and right hemispheres connected by the corpus callosum. In Figure 1, a sagittal section of the right hemispheres of the brain including some important structures and formations are seen. Simply, we can evaluate the brain in two essential parts in aspect to emotion, drive, decision and behavior. These parts are the limbic system seeing in the red circle and frontal cortex.

Figure 1.

Brain and some important structures and formations (NAc: Nucleus Accumbens; VTA: Ventral tegmental area)

Source: Modified from Morley, 2009; with the approval of the author.

The limbic system includes some important anatomical and functional formations of the brain such as thalamus, amygdala, hippocampus and nucleus accumbens (NAc).

Thalamus is responsible for the functions of the brain involved infiltration and realization. Hippocampus is a center of memory. It is also associated with coordination of thinking processes. Amygdala is related to some excited feelings such as fear and anger. NAc and ventral tegmental area (VTA) located in the center of the limbic system generates the basis of the brain reward system (BRS). Two brain hemispheres are consolidated or connected to each other by dense fibers called corpus callosum. It is also associated with creativity and problem solution. The cerebellum is responsible for muscle coordination, moving and thinking processes. The frontal cortex of the brain is associated with planning, strategizing, logic and judgment. While the limbic part of our brain represents motivational and impulsive behaviors, the frontal cortex, especially in, prefrontal part of cortex (PFK) represents voluntary and decision-making processes and behavioral control against to impulsivity.

Sometimes, neuromarketing has also been associated to several exaggerated claims, such as control of consumer behavior by external interventions or the presence of a “purchase button” in the brain (Ariely and Berns, 2010). The ethical aspect of neuromarketing and whether it really can be a sub-discipline of neuroscience is already debated among scientists.