The neuroscience of the sports fanatic: MRI scans peek inside the minds of soccer fans – revealing where winning and losing lives in the brain

Sports fans know that watching their team win releases a feeling of joy, but seeing them lose has the opposite effect – and these “feelings” can be seen in our brains.

Researchers at Clínica Alemana de Santiago in Chile scanned the brains of soccer fans and found that the sight of their team scoring lights up the area associated with reward.

When their team lost, the network of brain regions involved in the thinking process became more active, indicating that they were trying to make sense of what had just happened.

In other words, we feel good when we watch our team score. When we see our team’s opponents score on them, we try to justify it.

“This study aims to shed light on the behaviors and dynamics associated with intense competition, aggression, and social affiliation within and between groups of fanatics,” said Francisco Zamorano Mendieta, the study’s researcher, and a researcher at Clinica Alimana de Santiago in Chile, in a study published by the British newspaper “Daily Mail.” statement.

The results were presented Tuesday at the annual conference of the Radiological Society of North America.

Zamorano and his colleagues recruited 43 Chilean soccer fans for the study: 22 fans of Colo-Colo and 21 fans of Universidad de Chile.

These men watched a series of matches while their brains were scanned with magnetic resonance imaging (MRI).

Specifically, the collections included videos of teams scoring goals on their opponents and videos of their opponents scoring goals on them.

Zamorano has been researching football fans to study ‘us’ versus ‘them’ mentalities for years, so the team that scores a fan’s favorite goal doesn’t have to be just anyone but a competitor – ‘them’ to him.

When study participants watched their team score over a rival, the scientists saw the ventral striatum, caudate nucleus, and lenticular nucleus activate.

The ventral striatum, located in the forebrain, is a hub in the reward network, connecting multiple regions. The caudate nucleus, located a little deeper inside the brain, supports learning and memory.

Immediately adjacent to it is the lentiform nucleus, which is involved in working memory, executive function, and learning.

These three brain regions form an important part of the reward network, which gives us a hit of the chemical dopamine that makes us feel happy when we accomplish something, or in the case of sports, when we watch our team accomplish something.

Seeing the score of a rival to your team can trigger a certain pattern of activity in the brain. Scientists suspect that these brain responses could give better insight into other forms of intolerance, including political and religious extremism.

When fans watched their team score goals, a different set of brain regions were activated. This network, called “mentalization,” supports our ability to reflect on our own state of mind and that of others.

The researchers in the new study suspect that this may be a mental defense mechanism against the pain of loss — like the way you might start rationalizing “if only he had jumped sooner” immediately after watching your team allow a goal.

But something else happens at the same time when the thinking network lights up.

The dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (dACC) is disrupted, which may increase a person’s likelihood of behaving disruptively or violently.

The dACC is the center of the brain. It connects the limbic system, which is associated with behavioral and emotional responses, to the frontal cortex, which supports self-management and decision-making.

In other words, when they watch their team perform poorly, the area of ​​the brain that connects multiple areas associated with self-control and decision-making becomes less active. This can increase the likelihood of disruptive or violent behavior.

“When they lose, the mental network can be activated, taking the fan into a state of introspection,” Zamorano said.

“This may ease some of the pain of loss.” We also observed inhibition of the brain center that connects the limbic system to the frontal cortex, which hinders the mechanism that regulates cognitive control and increases the likelihood of falling into disruptive or violent behavior.

Studying these passionate soccer fans may offer insight into political partisanship and other forms of intolerance, but in a less volatile context than racial conflict or political violence, Zamorano said.

“Sports fandom… represents a unique opportunity to analyze how intense dedication affects neural activity in a less controversial context, particularly by highlighting the role of negative emotions, related inhibitory control mechanisms and potential coping strategies,” he said.