Danish researchers are looking where the Christmas spirit actually resides in humans using a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scan.
A study published in the British Medical Journal's annual Christmas issue, titled "Evidence of a Christmas spirit network in the brain: functional MRI study," detailed how the researchers are looking for evidence of the Christmas spirit.
The objective of the study was to "detect and localize the Christmas spirit in the human brain."
The study involved ten "healthy people from the Copenhagen area who routinely celebrate Christmas and 10 healthy people living in the same area who have no Christmas traditions."
All participants fill out questionnaires about their feelings toward Christmas. They were then asked to look at different images and Christmas-related images as they undergo an MRI scan.
The researchers found that those who celebrated Christmas have a "significant increase in specific neural activation in specific areas of the brain when they looked at Christmas images over other visual images."
"Understanding how the Christmas spirit works as a neurological network could provide insight into an interesting area of human neuropsychology and be a powerful tool in treating ailments such as bah humbug syndrome," the authors wrote.
They explained that more study is needed to "determine if this increase in neural activity happens in a larger group and if the activity was indeed a sign of sustained Christmas spirit or if it was activated for another reason."
New research is necessary to understand if and how holiday traditions can leave a lasting impact on the brain.
"Maybe one day we'll actually have an ability to use things like functional MRI to continue to link emotions in parts of the brain," Dr. Jeffrey Sunshine, vice chairman in the Department of Radiology at University Hospitals Case Medical Center, told ABC News.
Results of the MRI scan should be interpreted with caution as Christmas spirit cannot be fully explained by brain activity alone.
