And Karmarkar expects brain data to play a key role in future research on consumer choice.

FORBES: Neuromarketing: Tapping Into the 'Pleasure Center' of Consumers

But Karmarkar says that the research is more about understanding brain waves, not controlling them.

FORBES: Neuromarketing: Tapping Into the 'Pleasure Center' of Consumers

Karmarkar, an assistant professor at Harvard Business School who sports PhDs in both marketing and neuroscience.

FORBES: Neuromarketing: Tapping Into the 'Pleasure Center' of Consumers

Joydeep Karmarkar came fourth and Heena Sidhu at 21 has a good future in the 10m air pistol.

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For Karmarkar, her work falls into the category of decision neuroscience, which is the study of what our brains do as we make choices.

FORBES: Neuromarketing: Tapping Into the 'Pleasure Center' of Consumers

"Customer time is not explicitly involved in a transaction, " says Uday Karmarkar, director of the University of California, Los Angeles Center of Management in the Information Economy.

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