Heavy metal fans may handle pain better than others

Wacken Open Air is widely considered the world’s heaviest of heavy metal music festivals for good reason. The annual event in northern Germany has drawn metalheads from around the world to the otherwise quiet town since 1990, and regularly features hundreds of the genre’s biggest acts. With upwards of 85,000 headbangers in attendance, the hub of extreme music also occasionally draws another, smaller contingent of visitors—cognitive scientists.“We knew that suppressed ange