Istanbul Faculty of Medicine, Department of Neurology, Istanbul University, Istanbul, Turkey.
Hulusi Behçet Life Sciences Research Laboratory, Neuroimaging Unit, Istanbul University, Istanbul, Turkey.
Psychiatry Clin Neurosci. 2020 Sep;74(9):480-487. doi: 10.1111/pcn.13076. Epub 2020 Jul 5.
Sports activities provide social interaction for humans. Commitment to a given team is a salient feature of being a sports fan and becomes a prominent part of self-identification for fanatics. Emotion, subjective hedonic experience, and non-romantic love are related to fan behaviors. Few studies have evaluated the neural basis of sports fanaticism.
Thirty men, including 16 football fanatics and 14 non-fanatics, with a mean age of 27.4 ± 6.4 years (range, 20-48 years) were enrolled. Subjects underwent functional MRI while watching a set of goals scored by favorite, rival, and neutral teams.
The analysis of variance in a general linear model revealed a significant Group × Condition interaction effect in the bilateral dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (dACC) that was more prominent in the left hemisphere. In the post-hoc comparisons, fanatics showed increased activation in bilateral dACC, supplementary motor area, superior frontal cortex, right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, and right insula for Favorite > Neutral contrast and an increased activation in bilateral dACC and supplementary motor area for Rival > Neutral contrast. Seed-based connectivity analyses using the areas with significant activation differences revealed increased connectivity between dACC and several regions, including the left posterior lateral temporal area, insula, bilateral medial temporal area, and medial superior frontal area as well as the basal ganglia in fanatics compared to non-fanatics.
Our results suggest that football fanatics exhibit a different brain activation and connectivity pattern from non-fanatics, both under favorable and unfavorable conditions. This brain activity and connectivity pattern under emotionally laden conditions may represent higher responses to rewards, higher emotional valence attribution, and stronger motivational state of football fanatics, which might underlie their unusual behavioral responses.
体育活动为人类提供了社交互动。对特定球队的承诺是成为体育迷的一个显著特征，并成为狂热者自我认同的重要组成部分。情感、主观愉悦体验和非浪漫之爱与球迷行为有关。很少有研究评估体育狂热的神经基础。
招募了 30 名男性，包括 16 名足球狂热者和 14 名非狂热者，平均年龄为 27.4±6.4 岁（范围为 20-48 岁）。受试者在观看一组由喜爱、敌对和中立球队得分的目标时接受了功能磁共振成像。
一般线性模型的方差分析显示，双侧背侧前扣带皮层（dACC）的组×条件交互作用效应显著，左半球更为明显。在事后比较中，狂热者在双侧 dACC、辅助运动区、额上回、右侧背外侧前额叶和右侧岛叶中显示出对喜爱>中立对比的激活增加，以及在双侧 dACC 和辅助运动区中显示出对敌对>中立对比的激活增加。使用具有显著激活差异的区域进行基于种子的连通性分析显示，与非狂热者相比，狂热者的 dACC 与几个区域之间的连通性增加，包括左侧外侧颞区、岛叶、双侧内侧颞区和内侧额上回以及基底节。
我们的结果表明，足球狂热者在有利和不利条件下表现出与非狂热者不同的大脑激活和连通模式。这种在情绪负荷条件下的大脑活动和连通模式可能代表了足球狂热者对奖励的更高反应、更高的情绪效价归因和更强的动机状态，这可能是他们异常行为反应的基础。
