Monday, July 4, 2011
Brain scan reveals how our brain processes jokes
(Medical Xpress) -- A new Medical Research Council (MRC) study which has uncovered how our brain responds to jokes, could help to determine whether patients in a vegetative state can experience positive emotions.
Researchers from the MRC Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit (CBSU) used a brain scanning technique called functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) to watch and compare what goes on in the brains of normal individuals when they hear ordinary sentences and humorous jokes, including puns. By scanning the brains of twelve healthy volunteers, they found that the reward areas in our brain light up when processing jokes to a much greater degree than when we hear normal speech. This reward response increased with how funny the study participants found each of the jokes.
Dr. Matt Davis, who co-led the research at the Medical Research Council CBSU, said: “We found a characteristic pattern of brain activity when the jokes used were puns. For example, jokes like ‘Why don’t cannibals eat clowns? Because they taste funny!’ involved brain areas for language processing more than jokes that didn’t involve wordplay. This response differed again from non-humorous sentences that also contained words with more than one meaning. Mapping how the brain processes jokes and sentences shows how language contributes to the pleasure of getting a joke. We can use this as a benchmark for understanding how people who cannot communicate normally react to jokes.”
The authors believe they may be able to use this research to help discover whether someone in a vegetative state can experience positive emotions.
Dr. Tristan Bekinschtein, lead author of the paper, said: “We’ve previously used fMRI to detect language comprehension in vegetative state patients who can’t communicate in any other way. This study shows we could now use similar methods to look for positive emotions in these patients. This is very important for the families and friends of these patients, who want to know whether they can still experience pleasure and ‘laugh’, despite their adversity.”
Professor Susan Gathercole, director of the MRC CBSU, said: “This project demonstrates how even what might seem like idiosyncratic aspects of human experience, such as being amused, can be understood using the tools of neuroscience. There is a serious side to this. Being unable to take pleasure in everyday activities is a common symptom of depression. This research is an important part of the Medical Research Council’s commitment to explaining how the brain generates the experience of emotions and, ultimately, helping treat emotional problems.”
Dr. Matt Davis, who co-led the research at the Medical Research Council CBSU, said: “We found a characteristic pattern of brain activity when the jokes used were puns. For example, jokes like ‘Why don’t cannibals eat clowns? Because they taste funny!’ involved brain areas for language processing more than jokes that didn’t involve wordplay. This response differed again from non-humorous sentences that also contained words with more than one meaning. Mapping how the brain processes jokes and sentences shows how language contributes to the pleasure of getting a joke. We can use this as a benchmark for understanding how people who cannot communicate normally react to jokes.”
The authors believe they may be able to use this research to help discover whether someone in a vegetative state can experience positive emotions.
Dr. Tristan Bekinschtein, lead author of the paper, said: “We’ve previously used fMRI to detect language comprehension in vegetative state patients who can’t communicate in any other way. This study shows we could now use similar methods to look for positive emotions in these patients. This is very important for the families and friends of these patients, who want to know whether they can still experience pleasure and ‘laugh’, despite their adversity.”
Professor Susan Gathercole, director of the MRC CBSU, said: “This project demonstrates how even what might seem like idiosyncratic aspects of human experience, such as being amused, can be understood using the tools of neuroscience. There is a serious side to this. Being unable to take pleasure in everyday activities is a common symptom of depression. This research is an important part of the Medical Research Council’s commitment to explaining how the brain generates the experience of emotions and, ultimately, helping treat emotional problems.”
Provided by Medical Research Council
"Brain scan reveals how our brain processes jokes." June 30th, 2011. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-06-brain-scan-reveals.html
Comment:
"...because they taste funny!" Their jokes were probably off ~ try a fresher one...
"...because they taste funny!" Their jokes were probably off ~ try a fresher one...
Posted by
Robert Karl Stonjek
Robert Karl Stonjek
Your brain on nicotine: Nicotine receptors affect social behavior
If you think nicotine receptors are only important to smokers trying to kick the tobacco habit, think again. New research published in the FASEB Journal suggests that these receptors also play an important role in social interaction and the ability to choose between competing motivations. Specifically, scientists from France show that the nicotinic receptors in the prefrontal cortex are essential for social interaction in mice and that this area of the brain is necessary for adapted and balanced social interactions to occur. This new knowledge could one day lead to novel treatments for ADHD, schizophrenia, and depression, among other illnesses.
"One of the main aims would be to understand and help people to make good decisions for themselves (and for others) and to maintain, during old age, such abilities in the social domain as well as in other aspects of our lives," said Sylvie Granon, a researcher involved in the work from the Université Paris Sud XI and CNRS UMR 8620, Centre de Neurosciences Paris-Sud, Orsay, France.
To make this discovery, Granon and colleagues introduced mice into an open space and tested their will to interact with other mice of the same sex or to explore a novel place. The respective times spent for either social contact or novelty exploration were measured and quantitatively evaluated. Researchers then removed the prefrontal cortex in otherwise normal mice, which resulted in mice with significant social deficits. Those genetically modified to lack the nicotinic receptor gene for a widespread subunit called beta2 subtype, seemed to favor social contact rather than the investigation of a novel environment. When the beta2 nicotinic receptor in the brain was re-expressed, a normal balance between social contact and novelty seeking was restored.
"This research can be summed up by saying that it's the real-life equivalent of Chatty Cathy marrying the Marlboro Man," said Gerald Weissmann, M.D., Editor-in-Chief of the FASEB Journal. "Who could have guessed that there may be a biological explanation for 'social butterflies.' The explanation was found in an area of the brain that for decades has been considered a locus for nicotine addiction."
More information: Maria Elena Avale, Jonathan Chabout, Stéphanie Pons, Pierre Serreau, Fabrice De Chaumont, Jean-Christophe Olivo-Marin, Jean-Pierre Bourgeois, Uwe Maskos, Jean-Pierre Changeux, and Sylvie Granon. Prefrontal nicotinic receptors control novel social interaction between mice. FASEB J. July 2011 25:2145-2155;doi:10.1096/fj.10-178558
Provided by Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology
"Your brain on nicotine: Nicotine receptors affect social behavior." June 30th, 2011. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-06-brain-nicotine-receptors-affect-social.html
Posted by
Robert Karl Stonjek
Robert Karl Stonjek
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