Sports fans' brains 'light up' during big moments

What sports do you love and why?

Are you a big fan of watching sport?

Maybe football is your passion, you're obsessed with athletics, or maybe watching gymnastics brings you joy?

Well, a new study suggests the brain activity in die-hard fans of a sport is different from people who watch casually.

It suggests their brains light up when watching sports they love in a way that doesn't happen for others.

Read on to find out more.

Researchers from the University of Waterloo, in Canada, focused on hockey for their study, which was published in Scientific Reports.

The aim was to find out whether intense fans of the sport responded differently during key moments of the game, and how this shows up in the brain.

They tracked the brain activity of a group of 20 participants while they watched a professional ice hockey game. So what did the research team discover?

During faceoffs, which is when two players on opposing teams go head to head, the researchers found the real hockey fans showed more activity in the part of their brain which deals with how we judge and interpret what's happening around us.

The participants' brain activity was monitored while they watched a hockey game on a laptop

"We found that for fans who really love the sport, these faceoffs were moments of intense mental engagement," said Dr Luke Potwarka who is a researcher and co-author on the new study.

"It seems these plays signalled that something important was about to happen, something casual viewers may not notice in the same way."

Interestingly, the researchers found no brain difference during more obvious events like opportunities teams had to score.

They says it's probably because even casual fans recognize the importance of a goal.

Wonder what's going on on this losing fan's brain...?

On the other hand, understanding some parts of a sport's strategy needs more knowledge, and triggers deeper engagement in the brain for real fans.

The team which carried out the study say monitoring brain activity in this way could help them understand more about how fans are actually experiencing games as they happen in real time.

"This is just the beginning," said Adrian Safati who contributed to the research. "Future studies could use this approach across different sports to learn more about what keeps fans truly hooked."