{"id":215678,"date":"2025-06-10T01:04:35","date_gmt":"2025-06-10T06:04:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2025\/06\/all-about-those-faceoffs-study-shows-how-seasoned-hockey-fan-brains-react-to-key-moments-in-games"},"modified":"2025-06-10T01:04:35","modified_gmt":"2025-06-10T06:04:35","slug":"all-about-those-faceoffs-study-shows-how-seasoned-hockey-fan-brains-react-to-key-moments-in-games","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2025\/06\/all-about-those-faceoffs-study-shows-how-seasoned-hockey-fan-brains-react-to-key-moments-in-games","title":{"rendered":"All about those faceoffs: Study shows how seasoned hockey fan brains react to key moments in games"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/all-about-those-faceoffs-study-shows-how-seasoned-hockey-fan-brains-react-to-key-moments-in-games.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>What\u2019s happening inside the brain of a passionate hockey fan during a big game? A new study from the University of Waterloo gives a closer look at how the brain functions when watching sports, with data showing how different a die-hard fan\u2019s experience is from that of a casual viewer.<\/p>\n<p>The study, \u201cUnderstanding the sport viewership experience using functional near-infrared spectroscopy,\u201d is <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nature.com\/articles\/s41598-025-96895-7\" target=\"_blank\">published<\/a> in <i>Scientific Reports.<\/i><\/p>\n<p>The researchers found that during offensive faceoff opportunities, fans deeply invested in hockey showed more activity in a part of the brain called the dorsal medial prefrontal cortex. This area is connected to emotional involvement and evaluative thinking\u2014the mental processing we use to judge and interpret what\u2019s happening around us.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>What\u2019s happening inside the brain of a passionate hockey fan during a big game? A new study from the University of Waterloo gives a closer look at how the brain functions when watching sports, with data showing how different a die-hard fan\u2019s experience is from that of a casual viewer. The study, \u201cUnderstanding the sport [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":662,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[47],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-215678","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-neuroscience"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/215678","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/662"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=215678"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/215678\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=215678"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=215678"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=215678"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}