A Neurosurgeon Explains The Science

I attended an all-boys Catholic high school. My wife, her mother, her father and much of her extended family are alumni of either Notre Dame or St. Mary’s College. Even my children can belt out the fight song by heart. It’s fair to say we’re Irish fans, glued to the screen—or the stadium—every autumn Saturday.

And, when Notre Dame loses, the pain is visceral.

My wife, a then student at the time, witnessed the infamous “Bush Push” game in 2005, where she saw grown men—not players, mind you—sobbing in the dining hall after No. 1 USC staged a last-second comeback to snatch victory from the Irish in South Bend. Our family endured, in person, Alabama’s dismantling of Notre Dame in the 2012 BCS National Championship in Miami. And just two years ago, our entire family, kids included, traveled from Alabama to South Bend, only to watch Notre Dame fall on the final play to Ohio State—while inexplicably playing with just 10 men on the field for the last crucial play.

After Saturday’s latest heartbreak against Texas A&M—a razor-thin 41-40 defeat with merely seconds left on the clock—science compelled me to ask: Why are these losses so painful?

It Starts With Dopamine Pathways

Dopamine, a vital neurotransmitter, governs functions from emotion to movement. Neurons at the brain’s base produce it in a two-step process: first, the amino acid tyrosine is converted into L-dopa; then, enzymes transform L-dopa into dopamine.

This neurotransmitter travels along distinct pathways, each serving different but crucial roles in bodily function. The mesolimbic pathway channels dopamine from the ventral tegmental area to the ventral striatum, home to the nucleus accumbens—the brain’s pleasure hub.

This pathway drives reward, motivation and behavior reinforcement. When you savor chocolate, ace an exam, or even cheer a sports team’s victory, these regions ignite, releasing dopamine to signal triumph. Notably, this same mechanism underlies cocaine’s effects, highlighting its potency.

Your team’s win triggers this cascade, making fandom within the spectrum of a neurological high.

The Neuroscience Of Winning

Sports fandom engages the brain’s pleasure and pain centers, mirroring the highs and lows of actual personal triumphs and failures. The deeper your connection to a team, the more intensely you experience these emotions. Cheering for a team fosters a profound communal bond, shaping social identity. Research confirms these types of connections reduce loneliness and boost self-esteem.

Your team represents you, your city, your state, your community, time spent with your family and in a hyperbolic application of Notre Dame’s unique circumstance perhaps even an entire faith. Look at the deleted scene from the 1993 Notre Dame propaganda movie Rudy.

When your team wins, the ventral striatum—that critical node in the brain’s reward pathway—erupts in a euphoric burst, akin to achieving a personal milestone, despite no actual direct involvement with the team.

This isn’t conceptual it’s been proven.

A 2010 study using functional MRI (fMRI), which tracks blood flow changes to reveal brain activity, vividly demonstrated this. Researchers showed fans videos of their team—Yankees or Red Sox—hitting home runs or making spectacular catches. When their team succeeded, the ventral striatum lit up, signaling pleasure center activation.

This obviously reflects a complex neural circuit, simplified here for clarity. But it doesn’t just stop at dopamine, data also suggests that a team’s victory can elevate testosterone levels not only in players but also in fans, amplifying the thrill of triumph.

There is a real science to winning.

The Neuroscience Of Losing

The brain processes a team’s defeat, like a personal setback, by activating the anterior cingulate cortex, a key hub for emotional pain processing. This region engages when we personally have or personally witness suffering—such as wincing at a loved one’s injury.

The anterior cingulate cortex regulates emotional responses to both experienced and observed pain, creating a powerful neurological circuit. Functional MRI studies show that sports fans display brain activity similar to those enduring or witnessing actual pain, despite no physical harm occurring. For ardent fans, a team’s defeat triggers the same neural pathway activated when witnessing a spouse break a leg, yet the source is merely a sports game, devoid of any actual tangible pain.

Obviously there is a spectrum to this response but the same pathway is instigated.

What Happens When Your Rivals Lose

In the same 2010 study, Yankees fans watching Red Sox players falter—and vice versa—showed nearly as much joy, measured by fMRI, as when their own team excelled. Neuroscience confirms that a rival’s failure actually activates the ventral striatum, the brain’s pleasure center, rivaling the thrill of a team’s success. While there’s a playful satisfaction in watching distant sports rivals stumble, this neural response carries implications for daily life if unchecked. No one openly rejoices when an unathletic student fails a fitness test or exits gym dodgeball early. Yet, when a star athlete—the rival who excels at everything—finally stumbles in a sport, a subtle surge of neurological pleasure briefly ignites.

Everyone likes a good upset.

Behavioral Economics Of Loss Aversion

Nobel laureate Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky’s prospect theory revolutionized our understanding of why losses—like a sports team’s heartbreaking defeat—inflict disproportionate pain. Unlike classical economics’ rational actor model, prospect theory posits that we evaluate outcomes relative to a reference point, with an asymmetrical appreciation: losses loom larger than gains, often by a factor of two.

At its core, loss aversion posits that people hate losing more than they love gaining, by a factor of two-to-one. In experiments, subjects reject fair bets—like a coin flip for $100 gain or loss—unless the upside outweighs the downside substantially. This bias stems from our reference-dependent evaluations: we benchmark against a status quo, and deviations downward feel catastrophic.

NBA legend Jerry West nailed it, “The pain of losing is so much stronger than the joy of winning.”

As fans, we remember and value the losses more than the gains especially when we anticipated to win the game.

Should Notre Dame Have Won That Game? Is That Why It Hurts?

Growing up on Long Island, my family actually embodies a more die-hard New York Islanders loyalty than a Notre Dame fandom. Yet, Islanders losses seem to sting less than the current Irish defeats—and science explains why. The Islanders aren’t expected to win the Stanley Cup anytime soon, so loss aversion feels muted. Expectations have less to fall. In contrast, Notre Dame’s game on Saturday was a pivotal moment for the season. Notre Dame is coming off a national championship game in 2024 and were favored to win the contest by almost a touchdown. It was their game to lose, and they did.

The Irish opened with a respectable loss to Miami, a game Miami earned. However, against Texas A&M, Notre Dame probably should have prevailed. They squandered the game through self-inflicted errors—botched snaps, turnovers and gapped defense—more than Texas A&M outshined in the 41-40 upset. Credit to Texas A&M and their passing game especially, but the game still feels more lost than won.

And, as we explained, that always hurts more.