What Benefits does Brain Research have on Society as Studied Using a Humor Stimulus?

Every person has an appreciation for different forms of humor, whether it be stand-up, slapstick, hyperbolic, or ironic. However, one does not have to think about how they understand said humor, nor how it impacts their future behavior. Both of these functions are done subconsciously using the brain. The way people behave is largely contributed to by how the brain processes the information it is given through the occipital and frontal lobes. While it is often thought the brain uses singular parts to understand a subject, this is a common misconception. Different forms of comedy activate various regions of the brain, allowing for a deeper understanding in the science community about what causes people to interact with others in a certain way.

The brain is a human’s most complex organ being made up of billions of neurons. Amongst these neurons are neurotransmitter pathways in which behavior and emotions can become apparent. They allow a human to understand concepts with ease. While the brain uses several parts of itself to understand something, it is mainly in certain regions that comprehension occurs. The limbic system allows for the coordination of emotions, the frontal lobe assesses decisions, and the parietal lobe combines motor and sensory information. While these are just a few examples, the brain utilizes a multitude of other regions to comprehend information and apply this into real world scenarios and interactions. The brain is an organ of plasticity, meaning it has the ability to adapt and change should it be faced with damage. The brain’s interaction, complexity, and plasticity are relevant to the examination of the regions of the brain that are in use when a person is shown a variety of comedy forms.

The basis of a human’s behavior revolves around their emotions. Emotions are triggered through different regions of the brain being activated by different stimuli. The reward response system is one way the brain creates emotion. This system releases dopamine into the body, a hormone, commonly referred to as one of the happiness hormones. Psychologists Robert Franklin and Reginald Adams (2011), tracked what areas of the brain were activated during stand-up comedy using functional magnetic resonance imaging (p. 508). The fMRI scans showed activation in regions of the brain such as the amygdala, nucleus accumbens, caudate, and the left inferior frontal gyrus (p. 513). The amygdala directly links with emotion in the brain, while the nucleus accumbens plays a central role in the reward response systems. The caudate does not directly impact emotion, but it is involved with communication skills. This means with the caudate being activated, the person is able to use their communication skills to direct the way they behave. Finally, the left inferior frontal gyrus is involved with language composition and production, allowing said person to express how they feel about the clips verbally. Franklin and Adams (2011) concluded there was activation in the reward system region of the brain as shown with the help of high versus low humor (p. 513). Goel and Dolan (2001) supported Franklin and Adams’ (2011) findings of the reward system being active through the use of comedy, but Goel and Dolan looked at this through the method of having participants listen to jokes, rather than watch videos. The fMRI screening in this study showed activation in the participant’s ventromedial prefrontal cortex, an area involved with the inhibition of some emotional responses. Through the activation of the vmPFC, it can be seen that emotional responses can be inhibited, allowing further understanding as to why, or how, people can “turn off” some of their emotions.

Another aspect of human behavior is the ability to retain memories and apply them in social situations. Memory can be described as having the ability to recall, recognize, and relearn information that has been previously given to a person. In the manner of human behavior, memory is important as it allows people to build relationships and thrive in the world. A study done by Manfredi, Provérbio, Gonçalves Donate, Gonçalves Vieira, Comfort, Araújo Andreoli, and Boggio (2017) involved having participants view a series of facial expressions, each expression either being deemed as comic or non-comic. Manfredi et al (2017) found the left superior temporal gyrus was used in the processing of social situations and the right superior temporal gyrus was used for recognizing and combining facial expressions to understand the situation. Through the use of tDCS application to parts of the superior temporal gyrus, Manfredi et al (2017) were able to determine that with stimulation, each side of the superior temporal gyrus increased the average reaction time for one or more of the pictures shown to the participants (p. 1848). With the superior temporal gyrus being activated, a person can more easily recognize and react to a face, making their behavior in social situations more acceptable.

Goel and Dolan (2007) took this concept in a different direction. In their study, they were trying to determine how the brain reacts to humor and varying levels of social acceptability in the video clips the participants were shown. The clips were separated into three categories: socially acceptable, socially unacceptable, and humorous. Again, using functional magnetic resonance imaging, Goel and Dolan (2007) found the right hippocampus was only activated when the subject deemed the video socially unacceptable. However, when the subject deemed the clips either funny or socially acceptable, the ventromedial prefrontal cortex was being used (p. 1579). The link back to behavior involves the concept of the person using their hippocampus during times when they are shown socially unacceptable videos, therefore they are committing that information to memory so they do not repeat the same actions themselves. It is an example of how people can regulate their future behavior in order to become better at social interactions.

Human behaviors, that are linked with interaction with other members in society, are all linked through the ability to efficiently communicate and how good a person’s social skills are. One of the social skills that help make a person successful in the world is the art of appreciation and the ability to make decisions. Tetsuya Iidaka (2016) covers this spectrum of content through his study. While relying on participant-given ratings, Iidaka found a positive correlation between the amount of activation in the medial prefrontal cortex and the hippocampus with the relation of funniness of the clip. In Iidaka’s (2016) second part of this study, he has participants view the same clip from before, but this time without any of the sounds, i.e., laughter, speech, and background noise. This allowed the researcher to compare how the brain processed the humor. This concept of finding how the brain processes humor allows the further understanding on how the brain begins to appreciate things. The medial prefrontal cortex and hippocampus are both involved in memory, thus making appreciation easier if a person has previous knowledge of similar situations. This same study also deals with decision making as the participant has to rate their own thoughts about how funny said short film is. The medial prefrontal cortex helps them to be able to decide how humorous they believe the film to be.

Human behavior is often generalized into one category, human. But is there a difference in the social interactions and behavior of boys versus girls? Through observing what regions of the brain are activated while watching funny and positive clips, it may show inklings into the differences in the sexes. Vrticka, Neely, Walter, Black, and Reiss (2013) took a group of six to thirteen year old children and scanned their brains to determine humor appreciation in the mind of a child. What Vrticka et al (2013) found was an astonishing difference between the two sexes. Vrticka et al stated in their discussion, “…differences emerged because girls displayed stronger differential processing of funny versus positive clips in bilateral temporo-occipital cortex, midbrain, and amygdala. This…indicates that girls more readily engaged in incongruity resolution and experienced…positive feeling state and/or reward representation” (Vrticka et al, 2013, p. 8). Vrticka et al (2013) found in boys the ventromedial prefrontal cortex, bilateral inferior parietal lobule, inferior frontal gyrus, amygdala, and fusiform gyrus were more active in positive versus funny clips (p. 7). With the regions of the brain in each sex being activated differently, some conclusions can be drawn to show different behaviors of each sex and how they impact social interaction within society. The regions that were more active in the girls’ brains were involved in audio and visual processing, eye movements, and memory formation. The findings also showed girls saw the humorous clips as more important than the positive clips. The boys’ brains, however, were more immersed in word and facial recognition, interpreting sensory information, noticing emotions in facial stimulus, and language composition and production. This would make the findings out to show the boys having more of an emotional connection and understanding of the clips, and thus the world around them. However, this does not disclude the girls from emotionally connecting with the world around them. Through examination of the findings, it can be concluded the girls interpret the videos in a way that allows them to easier understand how to interact with others. The aspect of memory formation and audio and video processing being involved with the girls’ brains show they were committing to memory the information they saw and thus can be taken in a way that suggests the storage of information helps the girls interact with society in future situations, not just at one given moment.

While all of the previous examples involve typical human behaviors, what impact would the possibility of having a form of brain damage, or cerebellar damage, have on the implications of human interaction? Looked into through a study done by Frank, Propson, Göricke, Jacobi, Wild, and Timmann (2012), these five neuroscientists and one psychiatrist examined laughter in patients with cerebellar degeneration. Through the use of the Facial Action Coding System (FACS), they were able to observe the reactions of those with cerebellar damage when shown a variety of jokes and cartoons and compare it to healthy participants. The FACS is a program that classifies facial movements by observing individual elements of a person’s muscle movement in their face. According to Frank et al (2012) the cerebellar degeneration participants had showed expressions for a lesser amount of time when compared to the control participants. However, MRI scans showed no significant difference in humor appreciation between the patients and the controls. This lessened amount of time for facial expression could be contributed to depression, as depression was higher in the participants with cerebellar degeneration (p. 571). This research comes to the conclusion that while cerebellar degeneration does not impact the appreciation of humor, it can lead to a higher risk of developing depression. Depression can greatly impact how a person behaves in social situations. According to Michael Steger and Todd Kashdan (2009), “people with greater depressive symptoms reported somewhat fewer positive social interactions and significantly more negative social interactions” (p. 9). This shows depression can hinder the way people interact with others and how they view the society in which they live.

Looking at humor comprehension, a person’s brain uses the temporo-prefrontal areas, the temporo-parietal junction, and the superior frontal gyrus in order to understand a joke and react appropriately. Marinkovic, Baldwin, Courtney, Witzel, Dale, and Halgren (2011) delved into the aspect of joke appreciation by performing a study that had participants hearing a variety of punch lines with different humor levels and looking at where the brain was activated through the use of a combination of a magnetoencephalography and a MRI. Marinkovic et al (2011) found the left temporo-prefrontal areas of the brain were largely active when having to comprehend a difficult, or confusing, punch line that was given (p. 122). In addition, Campbell, Wallace, Modirrousta, Polimeni, Mckeen, and Reiss (2015) looked at blood-oxygen level dependent (BOLD) neurological responses when participants were shown a multitude of comics and asked to rate them based on how funny they were. Results found increased BOLD involved with the comprehension of humor and Campbell et al (2015) were able to link this with the left temporo-parietal junction and the appreciating humor with the superior frontal gyrus. The superior frontal gyrus is linked with human laughter and self-awareness, making activation of this help a person better form relationships and communications with others. Laughter itself helps a person get into a better mood by releasing dopamine into the body and self-awareness can help a person feel more confident, thus allowing their behaviors around others to be more welcoming.

Diverse forms of humor activate a multitude of different regions of the brain, allowing a deeper understanding to be made about the link between the interactions among human behavior and the brain. While the brain is the most complex organ in the human body, it controls everything a person needs to efficiently function in the world, including controlling human behaviors, processing incoming information such as humor, and how a person deals with internal struggles such as emotions and mental illnesses. At the moment, humans do not know nearly everything about the brain and what exactly it does, but through the research that has been done using comedy as a form of stimuli, a deeper understanding can be made. These conclusions found about the brain activation lead to a better comprehension about why people act in ways unknown, and help further the knowledge of the most complex organ humans have in their body.

References

Campbell, D. W., Wallace, M. G., Modirrousta, M., Polimeni, J. O., Mckeen, N. A., & Reiss, J. P. (2015). The neural basis of humour comprehension and humour appreciation: The roles of the temporoparietal junction and superior frontal gyrus. Neuropsychologia, 79, 10–20. doi:10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2015.10.013

Frank, B., Propson, B., Göricke, S., Jacobi, H., Wild, B., & Timmann, D. (2012). Humor and laughter in patients with cerebellar degeneration. The Cerebellum, 11(2), 564–573. doi:10.1007/s12311–011–0320-z

Franklin, R., & Adams, R. (2011). The reward of a good joke: Neural correlates of viewing dynamic displays of stand-up comedy. Cognitive, Affective, & Behavioral Neuroscience, 11(4), 508–515. doi:10.3758/s13415–011–0049–7

Goel, V., & Dolan, R. J. (2001). The functional anatomy of humor: Segregating cognitive and affective components. Nature Neuroscience, 4(3), 237–238. doi:10.1038/85076

Goel, V., & Dolan, R. J. (2007). Social regulation of affective experience of humor. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 19(9), 1574–1580. doi:10.1162/jocn.2007.19.9.1574

Iidaka, T. (2016). Humor appreciation involves parametric and synchronized activity in the medial prefrontal cortex and hippocampus. Cerebral Cortex (New York, N.Y.: 1991), doi:bhw325 [pii]

Manfredi, M., Proverbio, A. M., Gonçalves Donate, A. P., Macarini Gonçalves Vieira, S., Comfort, W. E., De Arajo Andreoli, M., & Boggio, P. S. (2017). tDCS application over the STG improves the ability to recognize and appreciate elements involved in humor processing. Experimental Brain Research, 235(6), 1843–1852. doi:10.1007/s00221–017–4932–5

Marinkovic, K., Baldwin, S., Courtney, M., Witzel, T., Dale, A., & Halgren, E. (2011). Right hemisphere has the last laugh: Neural dynamics of joke appreciation. Cognitive, Affective and Behavioral Neuroscience, 11(1), 113–30. doi:10.3758/s13415–010–0017–7

Steger, M. F., & Kashdan, T. B. (2009). Depression and Everyday Social Activity, Belonging, and Well-Being. Journal of Counseling Psychology, 56(2), 289–300. http://doi.org/10.1037/a0015416

Vrticka, P., Neely, M., Walter Shelly, E., Black, J. M., & Reiss, A. L. (2013). Sex differences during humor appreciation in child-sibling pairs. Social Neuroscience, 8(4), 291–304. doi:10.1080/17470919.2013.794751 [doi]