Neuromarketing: Peeking Inside the Black Box

The basic fundamental science underlying neuromarketing is neuroscience, which is the study of the how the brain gives rise to the mind. In other words, neuroscience is how the brain enables us to perceive, think, make decisions, feel emotions, communicate (i.e., the neural basis of human experience).
Techniques used by neuroscience are psychophysics (reaction times/detection levels), functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), magnetoencephalography (MEG) and electroencephalography (EEG). The most interesting of these to neuromarketing is fMRI scanning. I am sure we all have seen these on ER or other television shows, where the patient is slid inside a machine that hums and makes various other noises.
Neuromarketing is the application of the techniques of neuroscience to marketing stimuli—in layman's terms, to see how the brain "lights up" when exposed to our marketing efforts.