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Sound of Laughter Tickles the Brain
Forget the Funny Bone; Your Brain has a Sense of
Humor
By Miranda
Hitti
WebMD
Medical News |
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The sound of laughter may make you
smile and laugh, British researchers report.
"It seems that it's absolutely true
that 'laugh and the whole world laughs with you,'"
Sophie Scott, PhD, says in a news release. Scott is
a professor at University College London's Institute
of Cognitive Neuroscience.
Scott's team says when people hear
the sound of laughter, their brain areas that
control smiling and laughing become active.
The researchers played the sounds of
laughter through headphones to 20 healthy people
with good hearing (average age: 32).
While listening to laughter,
participants got brain scans using functional
magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI).
The brain scans showed activity in
brain areas that control facial muscles used in
smiling and laughing.
In short, the sound of laughter
spurred the brain to get ready to laugh and smile.
Participants' brain scans showed
similar activity upon hearing tapes of people
cheering, but not after hearing cries of fear or
disgust.
The findings may explain how the
brain mirrors other people's positive emotions.
"We usually encounter positive
emotions, such as laughter or cheering, in group
situations, whether watching a comedy program with
family or a football game with friends," Scott says.
"This response in the brain,
automatically priming us to smile or laugh, provides
a way of mirroring the behavior of others, something
which helps us to interact socially," she says.
"It could play an important role in
building strong bonds between individuals in a
group," Scott adds.
The study
is due for publication in the
Journal of Neuroscience.
© 2006, WebMD Inc. All rights reserved.
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