Can fMRI tell if I secretly love the Yankees? - June 16, 2008
Jeffrey Goldberg over at The Atlantic jumped into an fMRI machine for the sake of science … er … journalism, testing the claims of so-called neuromarketing – using the results of these brain mapping exercises to inform market research. The result is an amusing essay on his own doubts about what the pictures of his brain reveal about his feelings on Jimmy Carter, the Yankees, or Bruce Springsteen.
OK, but what if the sight of Golda Meir provoked feelings of sexual arousal? What if the sight of David Ben-Gurion provoked feelings of sexual arousal? What if it turned out that I actually feel disgust at the sight of Bruce Springsteen? To think of all the money I’ve wasted on concert tickets and T-shirts.He did come armed with a healthy scepticism of the science behind neuromarketing, scepticism that University of California Los Angeles professor Marco Iacoboni largely waved off.
Still, in the current issue of Nature Nikos Logothetis, at the Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics, in Tuebingen, Germany, reviews the limitations of fMRI’s use in cognitive neuroscience. While critical of the overinterpretation of fMRI mapping which is still based on the assumption that blood oxygenation levels can really pinpoint areas of metabolism and neural activity that can be temporally associated with, he concedes that fMRI is not “a worthless and non-informative ‘neophrenology.’”
Check out his podcast conversation with Keri Smith.
Neuromarketing certainly seems the most egregious of areas where overinterpretation is at play, and some of Goldberg’s results reveal what sounds more like tea leaf reading than anything else. Joshua Freedman, a practicing psychiatrist and partner in FKF Applied Research, which has been developing the fMRI-based market research processes, offers some explanations for Goldberg’s reward centre activity in response to pictures of Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
He asked me some questions about my view of Jewish history, and then said: “You seem to believe that the Jewish people endure, that people who try to hurt the Jewish people ultimately fail. Therefore, you derive pleasure from believing that Ahmadinejad will also eventually fail. It’s very similar to the experiment with the monkey and the grape. It’s been shown that the monkey feels maximal reward not when he eats the grape but at the moment he’s sure it’s in his possession, ready to eat. That could explain your response to Ahmadinejad.”
Yes, that could explain the brain scans. I wonder if he can interpret my dreams about batting against Yankees relief pitcher Mariano Rivera, too?
Comments
In my opinion, some considerations on the new are extremely necessary. Firstly, not exclusively with the aid of sophisticated machinery, as fMNR, we are able to detect brain regions showing improved circulation. As you can see in my website, Microcirculation, physicians are able to recognize in smallest area of the brain microcirculatory activation in a reliable way with a trivial stethoscope,according to clinical methods I discovered 22 years ago (Stagnaro S., Valutazione percusso-ascoltatoria della microcircolazione cerebrale globale e regionale. Atti, XII Congr. Naz. Soc. It. di Microangiologia e Microcircolazione. 13-15 Ottobre, Salerno, e Acta Medit. 145, 163,1986; Stagnaro-Neri M., Stagnaro S., Auscultatory Percussion Evaluation of Arterio-venous Anastomoses Dysfunction in early Arteriosclerosis. Acta Med. Medit. 5, 141,1989).
Secondly, according to my Angiobiopathy theory, physicians can assess parenchymal cell activity in ALL biological systems, including brain, bedside evaluating the local microcirculatory activation in a precise manner. Finally, in a long, well established clinical experience I have been utlizing such as paramount clinical method in evaluating with the aid of Quantum Biophysical Semeiotics possible brain lesion, even in its initial stage, i.e., Cancer Inherited Real Risk, carachterized by typical microcirculatory remodelling (ibidem),treated almost in all cases successfully with Coniugated Melatonin,NIR-LED personalized applications, and DIET ethimologically speaking, rather than to ascertain if italian people love more Del Piero than Pirlo (foot-ball players!)or more Berlusconi than Veltroni (simple players)
Posted by: Sergio Stagnaro MD | June 24, 2008 01:03 PM