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The relationship between laughter and the brain, however, is not fully understood. Scientists know little about the specific brain mechanisms responsible for laughter but they do know that many regions of the brain are involved. In a study where EEGs were used to examine brain activity in subjects responding to humorous material, a researcher named Derks determined that brain activity produced a regular electrical pattern. Within four-tenths of a second of exposure to something funny, an electrical wave moved through the largest part of the brain, the cerebral cortex. Specifically, researchers observed electrical activity in the:
- left side of the cortex (where words and the structure of a joke is analyzed)
- frontal lobe (involved in social emotional responses)
- right hemisphere of the cortex (intellectual analysis required to get the joke occurs here)
- sensory processing area of the occipital lobe (contains cells that process visual signals)
- motor sections (evokes physical responses to a joke)
Thus, a neural circuit that runs through many brain regions is involved in the production of laughter. It follows that damage to any of these brain regions could impair one's sense of humor and response to humor.
The brain's right frontal lobe is the processing center that allows one to know when something is funny. This region of the brain integrates information that comes from the cognitive parts of the brain with the emotional parts of the brain.
The human brain has to complete two steps to comprehend humor. Step one requires that one is sensitive to the element of surprise in humor. Once one realizes that something unexpected has occurred, step two is that one has to go beyond the unexpected and look for something that makes sense.
In addition to the above-mentioned regions, there are structures in the brain's limbic system that seem to play a role in laughter. This system, consisting of the amygdala, hippocampus, thalamus, and hypothalamus, is a network of structures located beneath the cerebral cortex that plays a role in motivation and emotional behaviors. The amygdala and hippocampus are involved with emotions; the amygdala connects with the hippocampus as well as the medial dorsal nucleus of the thalamus. This neural circuitry enables these areas to play an important role in the mediation and control of major activities like friendship, love, affection, and one's mood. Importantly, the median part of the hypothalamus has been identified as a major contributor to the production of loud, uncontrollable laughter.
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