Neuroimaging of soccer fans’ brain reveals neural basis of ingroup altruistic motivation

in news •  7 years ago 

By a News Reporter-Staff News Editor at Health & Medicine Week -- Rio de Janeiro, Brazil - Why sports fans can be so crazy about their teams? The answer lies deeply rooted in their brains, says a new study. Group belongingness is considered a basic human need and has been stated as a critical feature for hominin evolution. In the past decades, studies have shown our tendency to benefit ingroup over outgroup members during decisions, which can be explained by the reciprocal identification among members.

The study, published in Nature’s Scientific Reports journal on November 23th, reveals for the first time the brain functioning involved in altruistic motivation among soccer fans - a “natural group” that shows strong bonds in real-life settings. The functional MRI study, which can be found here, sheds light into the neural basis of prosocial behaviour of ingroup attachment.

“Attachment to cultural groups is a unique property of humans, fundamental for our survival, which, in turn, makes the investigation of its neural basis very critical”, states Dr. Jorge Moll, neuroscientist and senior author of the study. He is the head …

CITATION: (2017-12-15), Neuroimaging of soccer fans’ brain reveals neural basis of ingroup altruistic motivation, Health & Medicine Week, 2612, ISSN: 1532-4605, BUTTER® ID: 014845857

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