Does your Christmas mantra sound like "ho ho ho" or is it closer to "bah humbug"? Researchers from Denmark found a brain's nerve network can determine if a person is a Secret Santa or The Grinch.
Using brain scans, a study found certain brain areas are activated when participants were shown holiday images, but only if the holiday is part of their personal background.
The small study enrolled 10 people with Christmas traditions and 10 who don't celebrate the holiday. All 20 participants answered a questionnaire that delved into their ethnicity, Christmas traditions and holiday-related emotions.
The participants were shown 84 images, which included holiday-themed photos and daily activities. The MRI scans recorded the neural activity while each photo was flashed for two seconds.
Senior researcher Bryan Haddock said participants who celebrate Christmas have higher brain activity in five brain areas. Haddock theorized that the same brain areas would be activated when people are shown images of holidays they celebrate such as Ramadan or Hanukkah. Haddock is a medical physicist at the Rigshospitalet hospital, which is an affiliate of the University of Copenhagen.
"It's very possible this is a general holiday network. When you see images that remind you of good times with your family, that same network might activate," said Haddock.
Haddock stressed the participants' different traditions might have caused the neutral responses in some of the MRI scans. The brain areas that lit up when shown holiday images were also linked to spirituality, emotional recognition and social bonding.
The brain area's activation is higher in participants who take part in the holiday festivities with positive associations compared to participants with neutral associations or don't have Christmas traditions. The findings were published in the BMJ on Dec. 17.
Dr. Jeffrey Sunshine, the Department of Radiology chair at the University Hospitals Case Medical Center, commended the fun aspect of the small research. However, the findings are not highly scientific. Sunshine also highlighted the possibility of how the scientific community could transform something incorporeal such as the "Christmas Spirit" into a quantifiable aspect seen in an MRI brain scan.
"Maybe one day we'll actually have an ability to use things like functional MRI to continue to link emotions in parts of the brain," added Sunshine.
Photo: Keith Allison | Flickr
