[The cerebral representation of the Christmas spirit. A transcultural functional magnetic resonance study].

INTRODUCTION: Functional magnetic resonance imaging has been used to detect specific cognitive functions of the human brain. To our knowledge, no attempt has yet been made to localize the Christmas spirit using this technique.
MATERIAL AND METHODS: We used a 3 tesla MR scanner and a visual stimulation paradigm consisting of Christmas-associated images and matched neutral images. We studied two healthy subjects with and two healthy subjects without a Christmas celebrating cultural background.
RESULTS: In the Christmas celebrating group we observed an extensive cerebral response to Christmas associated stimulation comprising frontal, parieto-occipital and subcortical areas. In the control group we found a small response limited to visual association areas. DISCUSSION: Christmas-associated cerebral activation comprises a network involving areas of sensory, motor and emotional processing. The applied method is appropriate for the detection of Christmas-related areas of the brain but the results of the study should be verified in a larger sample size.