Get your earplugs ready because this post is metal. Last week, a group of neuroscientists published a paper reporting altered brain activity in heavy metal lovers.
The paper raised a few eyebrows, not least for its statement that metal fans show “disorders of behavioral and emotional cognition.“ It’s already attracted some convincing critical comments on PubPeer. To my mind, the paper is a perfect example of a flawed neuroimaging study.
Researchers Yan Sun and colleagues scanned 40 self-reported metal fans and a comparison group of 31 classical music lovers. fMRI was used to record brain activity in the resting state – “participants were instructed to relax, keep their eyes closed, stay awake, and avoid active thinking activities.”
Some differences between the metal- and classical-loving brains were found, e.g. as shown in this image (the color doesn’t seem to have come out properly):
heavy_metal_brain-768x395
Various brain areas were more or less ...
