That Neuroscience Guy - The Neuroscience of Christmas

Episode Date: December 20, 2021

The Holidays are here. Every year, plenty of us exchange gifts, wait for Santa Claus and spend time with family. In today's episode of That Neuroscience Guy, we discuss the neuroscience behind common holiday traditions and how we experience them.  

Hi, my name is Olof Kregolsen, and I'm a neuroscientist at the University of Victoria. And in my spare time, I'm that neuroscience guy. Welcome to the podcast. It's the holiday season, and no matter what your beliefs are, you're probably looking forward to the next couple weeks. I know I am. Even though my son's 14, it's still pretty awesome to wake up with him on Christmas morning and see the excitement in his eyes. Anyway, on today's episode, the neuroscience of Christmas. And for those of you that don't celebrate Christmas,

what I'm really talking about is our belief systems in our brain. So this time of year, you might like receiving gifts. I know I do. I still get excited opening something under the tree and going, wow, that's awesome. Someone got me this thing. Well, realistically, what's happening is we like thinking that others like us. It's a very common human belief. It's part of what I would call our belief system. Now, what is our belief system? Well, it's largely tied to the prefrontal cortex, and that's where we build our worldview. Now, we do get input from other brain regions. In fact, our belief system is tied rather strongly to input from other brain regions. For instance, we receive visual input from the visual system, auditory input from the auditory system, even somatosensation, you know, touch and

feelings that way. And all of this information is processed. And it goes for other systems too. You know, the emotional system we've talked about a lot, the amygdala might be firing. And the prefrontal cortex takes all of this and it basically constructs our worldview. How do we think the world works around us? Now, there's a lot of debate as to how this is actually done, but there's no doubt it's tied to our prefrontal cortex. So we take in this information

and we just build up a view of how the world works. Now, we constantly test our belief system. This is the ups and downs we experience in our everyday lives. And we do this because we process events. So for instance, when we're giving gifts on Christmas, well, this is positive reinforcement on our belief system. And if we don't get any gifts or no one calls us, then that's negative reinforcement on our belief system and our view of ourselves in the world is impacted. This is also why we liked giving gifts. Most of us in our belief system see ourselves as good people.

And we like seeing the reactions of others. When we see someone respond positively to us giving them a gift, well, the amygdala, of course, is activated. And we get a positive emotional response. And that's why we feel warm and fuzzy inside. But at the same time, it's reinforcing our belief system. The prefrontal cortex is taking in that information, seeing the reaction of someone else, and it's reinforcing this notion that, hey, you know, I'm a good person.

And of course, if they really like the present, you know, more than we thought they might, we might experience a prediction error. We talked about those back in season one when we talked about reinforcement learning. But if you remember the idea, it's pretty straightforward. You know, we have an expectation of what's going to happen in the world, and we expect that they're going to like the present. But they start jumping up and down, and wow, they really, really like it. And you get that little reinforcement learning prediction error, things are better than expected, and you get a little release of dopamine. And what does that do? Well, it helps strengthen our belief system. The prefrontal cortex processes that prediction error. And it's like, yes, I'm a good person.

This is a good thing. And this is also why someone not liking a gift that we give them can be an issue. If know, if you give someone a gift and they don't respond the way you think, you have a negative prediction error and things are a little bit worse than expected. Now, our belief system takes in that negative prediction error and again, it modifies our worldview and modifies how we think about ourselves. But again, it's all tied to this belief system in the prefrontal cortex. This is why, on a sad note, Christmas or the holiday season can be depressing for some people. Quite simply, we are social creatures. The vast majority of us prefer being around others.

And as discussed previously, the brain responds positively to the presence of others through the release of neurotransmitters and hormones. And again, the prefrontal cortex is always listening. It takes this in and says, hey, the world is an okay place. Things are going well right now. Now, if we're all alone on the holidays, which is a very common tie for depression, or we've lost someone recently, or we're just sad for some reason, well then the prefrontal cortex is taking in this information and these negative responses, so the negative prediction errors and the releases of neurotransmitters and hormones, they modify this belief system and they tell us that things aren't as good and that that is tied to being depressed. Now, not to underscore depression, but this is why the power of

positive thinking is so important. We literally create our own worldview. Like I've said, our belief system. And if we are constantly having a positive worldview, then our belief system will literally adapt to this idea that the world is a really, really good place. This is why when you want something inspirational, it reinforces a worldview where, hey, the world is a pretty good place. I recently watched 14 Peaks on Netflix. It's the story of a Sherpa climbing team that summited all of the 8,000 meter peaks in the world. And I'll tell you, you've got to watch it because if you can't see the power of positive thinking after watching that movie, I'd be surprised.

Now on a happier note, this is why kids believe in Santa. So our belief system, again, what's formed in the case of kids, because quite simply we tell them, you know, in my part of the world, we tell kids from a very young age, this is the way the world works. All right. There's this guy called Santa Claus and he lives in the North pole. And on the 25th, he comes and brings presents. And the kids put that into their belief system because they have no information to the contrary. Now, the prefrontal cortex in kids is also still developing. And that's part of the problem, which is the prefrontal cortex. It's a little bit more susceptible to this kind of information and not willing to rule out some of the contrary information. And when kids sadly stop believing

in Santa Claus, it's simply because there's an increase in statistical information that suggests that that worldview or that belief system isn't quite the way things actually work. And that's an important point to mention here. Our belief system is a statistical system. Our worldview isn't yes, no. It's more like 60% yes, 40% no. So we believe the yes. Our brains are statistical things. Even if you're bad at statistics, it's true. Our brains are constantly taking information in and they're updating our belief system. And our belief system, like I've said, works with probabilities. So there is a probability that Santa Claus is real and there is a probability that Santa Claus is not real. And when we acquire enough information, then we go one way or the

other. Now, the last thing I'll talk about briefly when you talk about the neuroscience of Christmas and belief systems is a concept of hope. For a lot of people, this time of year is tied with hope. Hope for happiness, hope for others, and hope for a better new year. Now within the brain, this again comes to the prefrontal cortex in our belief systems. And specifically, the bilateral medial orbital frontal cortex has been tied to having hope. If you have increased activity in this region, you have more hope. If you have decreased activity in this region, you have less hope. It's interesting because the medial orbital frontal cortex, it's a region involved in reward processing.

It's basically activated when we're motivated. It's tied to problem solving and goal-oriented behavior. And it's a key part of our belief system. So again, hope is something that comes from a part of the brain, specifically the medial orbital frontal cortex, but it is tied to our belief system. Do we believe that this is the way, you know, do we believe we should have hope? And I'll point out here, just because of recent events in the world, this is why COVID-19 has been so hard on us. Every time we get our hopes up, every time our belief system engages and information comes in against us, it's tough.

We get crushed. We have some negative emotions firing and we have to redo our belief system. And if you think back to COVID, during 2020, we all thought 2021 was going to be a better year. And I don't know about you, but my belief system has been challenged a bit. But if you think back to what I said earlier, this is where the power of positive thinking comes in. We need to have a belief system that the world will be a better place and that COVID-19 will one day end. Anyway, that's a lot about our belief systems.

The real take-home message here is that our beliefs about how the world works are a product of our prefrontal cortex. The prefrontal cortex is constantly taking in information and adapting our beliefs. And those are our worldviews. I hope you all have a great holiday season. For those of you that believe in Christmas, have a Merry Christmas. And I hope you enjoyed the neuroscience of Christmas and a little bit about our human belief system. Don't forget you can follow me on Twitter at ThatNeuroscienceGuy. We are taking emails, ThatNeuroscienceGuy at gmail.com. And of course, we have our fledgling YouTube channel, That Neuroscience Guy.

I hope once again, you all have a great holiday. We'll be back next week with another episode. And I hope you enjoyed today's podcast. My name is Olav Kregolsen, and I'm that neuroscience guy. Have a great day.