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At Christmas time every year, the British Medical Journal publishes a ‘fluff piece’. While the science is generally considered sound, the subject matter is meant to be humorous and light-hearted. Previous papers include titles such as where did all the teaspoons go? and the side effects of sword swallowing. In 2015, the BMJ released a truly festive article, looking for the precise location of Christmas cheer within the human brain.
While analysing the fMRI scans of subjects in a migraine research programme, Anders Hougaard and his colleagues at the University of Copenhagen noticed particular regions of the brain firing when images of Christmas were shown. This led them to conduct a secondary study, using twenty healthy volunteers, half of whom had positive experiences of the season, while the other half had no festive traditions or were neutral to the event.
Hougaard set about trying to locate the neurological responses from both groups, in an attempt to locate a specific centre of activity. While the study did not use a representative sample size acceptable for rigorous conclusions to be drawn, their findings were intriguing.
Those in the positive Christmas group showed brain activity in several related areas of the brain. From the information gleaned, they analysed each of the connected pathways in relation…