Neuroethics

One of the common questions I'm asked at conferences and by reporters is whether neuromarketing techniques are ethical, or whether they are just one more way to manipulate consumers into buying stuff they don't need. My response to this is…

For years, most criticism of neuromarketing has been either alarmism ("OMG! They are reading my thoughts to make me buy stuff!") or outright dismissal ("There's no valid science, they are all charlatans!"). In the last few weeks,…

I've been hearing the invented word "brandwashing" for years now, but this combination of "branding" and "brainwashing" received new exposure when the New York Times suggested it as a synonym for neuromarketing.

Seth Godin has a nice post on ethical marketing that is equally applicable to neuromarketing. Godin makes the point that marketing can be used for evil purposes, such as persuading people to use products that are bad for them, but that…

Emory University has announced the establishment of a new Center for Neuropolicy. The focus of the entity will be on the intersection of brain science, individual decision making, and politics. A new Center for Neuropolicy at Emory…

WIRED ran an interesting piece that suggests increasingly invasive brain technologies will become a legal battleground. The more obvious areas have already been discussed here and elsewhere: using brain scans as lie detectors or to see if…

Are the non-medical applications of fMRI and other brain imaging technology overrated, or are we seeing the birth of a major new field of study? Ofri Ilani and Yotam Feldman of Haaretz have written a lengthy survey piece that starts by…

What's the next big frontier in pharmaceutical marketing? Blockbuster drugs seem harder to develop these days, and it's getting more difficult to sell minor tweaks to old products as major breakthroughs. It's even getting more challenging…

There's more proof that the hormone oxytocin is an important factor in our social behavior. Previously, the brain chemical was shown to be associated with trust (see Building Trust: Chemical Neuromarketing). Now, researcher Paul Zak, a…

Decision making is emerging as a key area of neuroscience research. Neuroeconomics and neuromarketing are informed by brain scan data and other studies of how people make decisions, and now Vanderbilt University is the home for a major new…