Utilizing Neuroscience Perspective to Track Muslim Consumers’ Behavior Toward Halal Products

Abstract

The global market of ethical products is growing substantially, especially the market of Halal products. Therefore, there is a need to understand how Muslim consumers perceive food products. This exploratory study is an attempt to study the brain responses of Muslim consumers to Halal and non-Halal food images using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) technique. During fMRI experiment, the brain images were collected for ten participants while watching the Halal and non-Halal food images. Across all participants, the level of brain activation in the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) increased significantly when Halal images were presented to them. The variations in the results may be due to the high emotional sensitivity of Muslim consumers to using religious products.