It's the holidays! Can you already feel the Christmas spirit? If the answer is no, then this MRI might back you up.
A team of researchers from Denmark wants to take the Christmas spirit more intimately by discovering whether some people have the bah-humbug syndrome, an allusion to a famous expression by Ebenezer Scrooge from A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens.
According to the story, Scrooge disliked Christmas unlike Bob Cratchit, who, despite being poor and underpaid by Scrooge, was oozing with feeling of holiday warmth. Both had become symbols of the two faces of one of the world's most beloved holidays.
For the study, Danish researchers worked with two groups of people: one those who strongly associated themselves with the holidays and those who didn't really care about Christmas such as Pakistanis and Turkish who now lived in Denmark.
To have a less biased result, the team excluded those who related Christmas to a negative personal experience or men and women who felt strong connection with the holidays but didn't really celebrate it.
The participants, who then reported to Copenhagen University where the study was conducted, were then connected to the magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) machine, which could create a picture of brain activity. The researchers then showed them two parallel images, one showing Christmas theme while the other didn't.
The MRI then revealed that people who felt strong connection with the holidays registered certain brain activity in the regions that are linked to body language and touch. The same activity was missing in the other group.
Whether the group has indeed found the Christmas spirit remains to be seen since it required a more extensive research. Further, there were limitations including determining the brain response was truly associated with Christmas or just a response to being happy. The researchers themselves didn't take the study too seriously but rather were merely having fun with science.
