um, what would be the alternative?

I would generally like to write only positive, affirmative, things here. But sometimes, you just gotta wonder...

An interesting functional imaging study of envy appears in this week's issue of Science, and is written up in today's New York Times. The headline in the Times is: "In pain and joy of envy, the brain may play a role." 

Well, really. Um, what precisely would the alternative be, that the brain does not "play a role" in envy?