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Decision-making is the process of selecting a logical choice from among the available options and happens as a complex process in the human brain. It is based on information processing and cost-analysis; it involves psychological factors, specifically, emotions. In addition to cost factors personal preferences have significant influence on decision making. For marketing purposes, it is interesting to know how these emotions are related to product acquisition decision and how to improve these products according to the user's preferences. For our proof-of-concept study, we use magneto- and electro-encephalography (MEG, EEG) to evaluate the very early reactions in the brain related to the emotions. Recordings from these methods are comprehensive sources of information to investigate neural processes of the human brain with good spatial- and excellent temporal resolution. Those characteristics make these methods suitable to examine the neurologic process that gives origin to human behavior and specifically, decision making. Literature describes some neuronal correlates for individual preferences, like asymmetrical distribution of frequency specific activity in frontal and prefrontal areas, which are associated with emotional processing. Such correlates could be used to objectively evaluate the pleasantness of product appearance and branding (i.e., logo), thus avoiding subjective bias. This study evaluates the effects of different product features on brain activity and whether these methods could potentially be used for marketing and product design. We analyzed the influence of color and fit of sports shirts, as well as a brand logo on the brain activity, specifically in frontal asymmetric activation. Measurements were performed using MEG and EEG with 10 healthy subjects. Images of t-shirts with different characteristics were presented on a screen. We recorded the subjective evaluation by asking for a positive, negative or neutral rating. The results showed significantly different responses between positively and negatively rated shirts. While the influence of the presence of a logo was present in behavioral data, but not in the neurocognitive data, the influence of shirt fit and color could be reconstructed in both data sets. This method may enable evaluation of subjective product preference.

Objective: Atypical patterns of language lateralization due to early reorganizational processes constitute a challenge in the pre-surgical evaluation of patients with pharmaco-resistant epilepsy. There is no consensus on an optimal analysis method used for the identification of language dominance in MEG. This study examines the concordance between MEG source localization of beta power desynchronization and fMRI with regard to lateralization and localization of expressive and receptive language areas using a visual verb generation task.Methods: Twenty-five patients with pharmaco-resistant epilepsy, including six patients with atypical language lateralization, and ten right-handed controls obtained MEG and fMRI language assessment. Fourteen patients additionally underwent the Wada test. We analyzed MEG beta power desynchronization in sensor (controls) and source space (patients and controls). Beta power decrease between 13 and 35 Hz was localized applying Dynamic Imaging of Coherent Sources Beamformer technique. Statistical inferences were grounded on cluster-based permutation testing for single subjects.Results: Event-related desynchronization of beta power in MEG was seen within the language-dominant frontal and temporal lobe and within the premotor cortex. Our analysis pipeline consistently yielded left language dominance with high laterality indices in controls. Language lateralization in MEG and Wada test agreed in all 14 patients for inferior frontal, temporal and parietal language areas (Cohen’s Kappa = 1, p < 0.001). fMRI agreed with Wada test in 12 out of 14 cases (85.7%) for Broca’s area (Cohen’s Kappa = 0.71, p = 0.024), while the agreement for temporal and temporo-parietal language areas were non-significant. Concordance between MEG and fMRI laterality indices was highest within the inferior frontal gyrus, with an agreement in 19/24 cases (79.2%), and non-significant for Wernicke’s area. Spatial agreement between fMRI and MEG varied considerably between subjects and brain regions with the lowest Euclidean distances within the inferior frontal region of interest.Conclusion: Localizing the desynchronization of MEG beta power using a verb generation task is a promising tool for the identification of language dominance in the pre-surgical evaluation of epilepsy patients. The overall agreement between MEG and fMRI was lower than expected and might be attributed to differences within the baseline condition. A larger sample size and an adjustment of the experimental designs are needed to draw further conclusions.

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