"Popular Brands May Brand the Brain" (Neuroeconomics)

From the Washington Post:

Marketers may have your number, neurologically speaking: A new study finds that familiar brands evoke faster, more positive responses in the brain than lesser-known brands.

In tests on young adults using real-time functional MRI (fMRI), the logos of well-known auto and insurance companies "lit up" areas of the brain associated with warm emotions, reward and self-identity.