By BENEDICT CAREY One was a middle-aged man who refused to get into the shower. The other was a teenager who was afraid to get out. Before Ross, 21, had brain surgery two years ago, his obsessive-compulsive disorder kept him from leaving the house. “It saved my life,” he said. The man, Leonard, a writer living outside Chicago, found himself completely unable to wash himself or brush his teeth. The teenager, Ross, growing up in a suburb of New York, had become so terrified of germs that he would regularly shower for seven hours. Each received a diagnosis of severe obsessive-compulsive disorder, or O.C.D., and for years neither felt comfortable enough to leave the house. But leave they eventually did, traveling in desperation to a hospital in Rhode Island for an experimental brain operation in which four raisin-sized holes were burned deep in their brains. Today, two years after surgery, Ross is 21 and in college. “It saved my life,” he said. “I really believe that.” The same cannot be said for Leonard, 67, who had surgery in 1995. “There was no change at all,” he said. “I still don’t leave the house.” Both men asked that their last names not be used to protect their privacy. The great promise of neuroscience at the end of the last century was that it would revolutionize the treatment of psychiatric problems. But the first real application of advanced brain science is not novel at all. It is a precise, sophisticated version of an old and controversial approach: psychosurgery, in which doctors operate directly on the brain. Copyright 2009 The New York Times Company

Keyword: OCD - Obsessive Compulsive Disorder; Depression
Link ID: 13507 - Posted: 06.24.2010

by Linda Geddes A man strangles his wife while dreaming about fighting off intruders in his sleep. Does that make him mad, bad or innocent? Recent research is helping to unpick these issues, and may help reveal who, if anyone, bears responsibility in such cases. Last week, British man Brian Thomas appeared in court on a murder charge after strangling his wife as they slept in their camper van. The prosecution withdrew the charges after three psychiatrists testified that locking him up would serve no useful purpose. The judge said that Thomas bore no responsibility for his actions. The case has cast a spotlight on the use of such sleepwalking defences in court. "If you look at the media reports there appears to be an upsurge in the use of the sleepwalking defence," says Michel Cramer-Bornemann of the Minnesota Regional Sleep Disorders Center in Minneapolis. Thomas had a genuine sleep disorder, but Cramer-Bornemann is concerned that in many other cases, the sleepwalking and other sleep-related defences are misused. Studies on the causes of sleepwalking may eventually make it easier to identify who has a genuine sleep disorder that could occasionally result in violence, and who is making it up. Last month, Ursula Voss of Bonn University in Germany and colleagues reported that even during lucid dreaming – a state in which some people claim to be able to control their dreams – some areas of the brain associated with intent stayed offline, while other areas associated with consciousness were active. "As long as you are in a dream, you have no free rein on your actions and emotions," says Voss (Sleep, vol 32, p 1191). © Copyright Reed Business Information Ltd.

Keyword: Sleep; Aggression
Link ID: 13506 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By R. Douglas Fields Practice makes perfect, but how? Two groups of neuroscientists using MRI brain imaging announced last month that they were able to see changes inside the brains of people after mastering a new skill. The big surprise is that the part of the brain that changed has no neurons or synapses in it! The cerebral remodeling during learning was seen in the mysterious and still largely unexplored “white matter” region of the brain. “Grey matter” is synonymous with smarts, but in fact only half of the human brain is grey matter. White matter, the “other brain tissue”, is rarely mentioned. Neurons in the cerebral cortex are packed into in the top layers of the brain, where they are connected together through synapses. Learning takes place in the grey matter by linking neurons together into new circuits by strengthening synapses or forming new ones. But beneath the topsoil of the brain lies a dense network of fibers packed into a spaghetti-like snarl that is so complicated it is difficult to study or comprehend. These fibers are the wire-like axons projecting out from neurons in grey matter that transmit electrical impulses. Like buried telephone lines, these tightly bundled cables transmit information over long distances to communicate between distant regions of the cerebral cortex that are specialized to carry out different aspects of a complex cognitive function. © 1996-2009 Scientific American Inc.

Keyword: Learning & Memory; Brain imaging
Link ID: 13505 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By Carina Storrs The act of hearing is a group effort for the human body's organs, involving the ears, the eyes and also, according to the results of a new study, the skin. In 1976 scientists discovered the importance of the eyes to our sense of hearing by demonstrating that the eyes could fool the ears in a peculiar phenomenon named the McGurk effect. When participants watched a video in which a person was saying "ga" but the audio was playing "ba," people thought they heard a completely different sound—"da." Now, by mixing audio with the tactile sense of airflow, researchers have found that our perception of certain sounds relies, in part, on being able to feel these sounds. The study was published November 26 in Nature. Normally when we say words with the letters "p," "t" and "k," we produce a puff of air. This puff helps the listener distinguish words with these letters from those with the similar sounding "b," "d" and "g," respectively, even though the puff is so subtle that most of us do not even notice feeling it. "Unless you're a microphone manufacturer or a radio jockey or a phonetician, this isn't something that you're aware of," says Bryan Gick, an associate professor of linguistics at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, and lead author of the study. Donald Derrick, a graduate student in the University's Department of Linguistics, is the other author on the study. Gick and Derrick set out to determine if these puffs of air help us to perceive "p" and "t" sounds. The pair had 66 participants listen to sessions of recorded sounds through headphones. In one session, the participants heard a combination of "pa" and "ba," and, in the other, "ta" and "da." © 1996-2009 Scientific American Inc

Keyword: Hearing; Language
Link ID: 13504 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By Steven Hyman Beauty may be only skin deep, but hot goes to the bone. Proteins involved in breaking down bones are also part of the body’s thermostat, a new study shows. The proteins — a receptor called RANK and the protein that binds to it, called RANKL — turn up the heat to cause fever during infections and also help regulate daily temperature rhythms in female rodents, a study published in the Nov. 26 Nature shows. And the proteins, which are involved in osteoporosis, may also be a source of the hot flashes that post-menopausal women experience. Scientists already knew that RANK and RANKL team up to help tear down bones. That demolition is part of the normal maintenance of bones in the body and in pregnant women, it also helps free up calcium that in turn is used to solidify the baby’s bones. The proteins are also part of the signaling pathway that prompts lactation. After menopause, the bone remodeling system may take tearing down too seriously, resulting in osteoporosis. Large-scale clinical trials have recently shown that denosumab, an antibody directed against RANKL, can help protect bones. But the skeleton isn’t the only place the protein pair works. Researchers had been surprised to find it in the brain, says Josef Penninger, an immunologist at the Institute of Molecular Biotechnology at the Austrian Academy of Sciences in Vienna. No one had a clue what bone proteins were doing in the brain, but it was important to find out before potentially giving RANK blockers such as denosumab to millions of women as an osteoporosis therapy, Penninger says. © Society for Science & the Public 2000 - 2009

Keyword: Miscellaneous
Link ID: 13503 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By Greg Miller Breathe too much carbon dioxide (CO2), and you'll suffocate. That's why people begin to panic if they breathe air enriched with the gas. One reason this happens, according to a new study in mice, is because breathing CO2 triggers chemical sensors in a crucial part of the brain's fear circuitry. The findings could point the way to new treatments for anxiety disorders. Neuroscientist John Wemmie and colleagues at the University of Iowa in Iowa City focused on a protein found in particular abundance in the amygdala, the brain's fear center. They'd shown previously that mice lacking the gene for this protein, known as acid-sensing ion channel-1a (ASIC1a), have impaired fear behavior. In their new study, reported today in Cell, the researchers show that mice lacking this gene don't freeze in place--a commonly used indicator of rodent fear--to the extent that normal mice do when the team pumped CO2 into their enclosure. But when Wemmie and colleagues injected a virus containing the ASIC1a gene into the amygdala of the mice, they acted like normal mice, freezing up when exposed to elevated CO2. In additional experiments, the team found that breathing CO2 slightly lowers the pH in the amygdala, meaning that the tissue becomes more acidic. Exposing cultured mouse amygdala neurons to a similar dip in pH elicited an electrical current, but not in neurons from mice lacking ASIC1a. When the researchers injected normal mice with bicarbonate--a buffer that prevents the pH dip--in the amygdala, the mice froze less in response to CO2. Taken together, the findings point to the following scenario, Wemmie says: Inhaling CO2 raises the acid level in the amygdala, thereby activating ASIC1a and altering the electrical signaling of amygdala neurons to produce a fear response. CO2 also increases the breathing rate in mice and humans, and the findings don't rule out the possibility that this change also contributes to fear responses as some researchers have proposed, Wemmie says. © 2009 American Association for the Advancement of Science

Keyword: Emotions
Link ID: 13502 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By Alexis Madrigal Email Author A defendant’s fMRI brain scan has been used in court for what is believed to be the first time. Brain scan evidence that the defense claimed shows the defendant’s brain was psychopathic was allowed into the sentencing portion of a murder trial in Chicago, Science reported Monday. Brian Dugan, who had been convicted of the rape and murder of a 10-year old, was sentenced to death, despite the fMRI scans. “I don’t know of any other cases where fMRI was used in that context,” Stanford professor Hank Greely told Science. While the possibility of using fMRI data in a variety of contexts, particularly lie detection, has bounced around the margins of the legal system for years, there are almost no documented cases of its actual use. In the 2005 case Roper v. Simmons, the Supreme Court allowed brain scans to be entered as evidence to show that adolescent brains work differently than adult brains. That’s a far cry, though, from using fMRI to establish the truth of testimony or that specific structures within an individual defendant’s brain are legally relevant. It’s difficult to tell whether the Dugan case will be a watershed moment in the use of brain scan evidence in court, or if the evidence impacted the decision in this case. © 2009 Condé Nast Digital.

Keyword: Brain imaging; Aggression
Link ID: 13501 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By Nick Higham For an actor, the performance conditions weren't exactly ideal: flat on her back in a large machine, under strict instructions to lie as still as possible, speaking in short bursts interspersed with the shrill sound of a magnetic resonance imaging scanner. But last week Fiona Shaw, one of Britain's leading actresses - who has in her time played everything from the tragic heroine Medea to Shakespeare's Richard II - volunteered in the cause of science to spend an hour having her brain scanned while "acting". Professor Sophie Scott of the Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience at University College London wanted to know what happens physically in an actor's head when they pretend to be someone else. She hoped that scanning Fiona's brain in action would be able to tell us. The scanner works by measuring blood flow to different parts of the brain. The harder a part is working, the more blood flows into it. The parts of the brain that control speech are well known: what Prof Scott wanted to know was whether other parts of the brain would also "light up" when actors speak in character rather than as themselves. The results of the experiment will be on display as part of the Wellcome Collection's new exhibition on identity. Prof Scott, who is also a Wellcome senior fellow, says our speech and the way we use language are important components of our identity - and one of the ways actors seek to convince their audience that they are another person is of course by changing their voice. For the experiment, Fiona Shaw performed snatches of T S Eliot's poem The Waste Land. (Appropriately enough, given the circumstances, Eliot's original title for the poem was He Do the Police in Different Voices.) (C)BBC

Keyword: Brain imaging
Link ID: 13500 - Posted: 11.24.2009

Giving birth seems to slow the progression of multiple sclerosis (MS), Belgian and Dutch researchers say. The researchers tracked 330 women with MS for 18 years and found that among those who had children, severe disability took longer to develop. Writing in the Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery and Psychiatry, they say previous studies have suggested a worsening of MS just after birth. But the MS Society said the study was flawed and further research was needed. MS is a long-term inflammatory condition of the central nervous system. It affects the transfer of messages from the nervous system to the rest of the body. Women are twice as likely to develop MS as men and many of the new cases will be among women of childbearing age. The researchers from Belgium and the Netherlands said all the women had been referred to one specialist centre and had had their first symptoms from the ages of 22 to almost 38. Nearly a quarter of the women (24%) were childless; 170 had given birth before their symptoms developed (52%); 61 had their children after their symptoms developed (18%); and 19 had had children both before and afterwards (6%). The researchers used the Kurtzke Expanded Disability Status Scale (EDSS) which runs from one to 10, where 10 is death from MS and six is when an individual needs a cane, a crutch or a brace to walk 100m. After an average of 18 years living with MS, over half the women (55%) were categorised as EDSS six. They found that both the likelihood and speed of progression were affected by childbirth. Women who had given birth to one or more children at any point before or after the start of MS symptoms were 34% less likely to progress to EDSS six than childless women. (C)BBC

Keyword: Multiple Sclerosis; Hormones & Behavior
Link ID: 13499 - Posted: 11.24.2009

The Multiple Sclerosis Society of Canada will finance some research into an experimental Italian treatment but urges patients not to stop treatment until more is known about the procedure.The Multiple Sclerosis Society of Canada will finance some research into an experimental Italian treatment but urges patients not to stop treatment until more is known about the procedure. (M. Spencer Green/Associated Press) The Multiple Sclerosis Society of Canada will be asking Canadian scientists to propose their own research into a procedure that has ignited the hopes of patients in Europe and North America. The procedure is known as chronic cerebro spinal venous insufficiency, or CCSVI, and involves removing a blockage in the veins that carry blood to and from the brain. An Italian vascular surgeon, Dr. Paolo Zamboni, a professor of medicine at the University of Ferrara in Italy, has reported success in reducing the symptoms of people who suffer from multiple sclerosis. The Canadian MS organization has reacted to Zamboni's research with caution. On Monday, however, the society said that after receiving so many inquiries about the procedure, it has decided to offer a grant to researchers in Canada. Details of the program will be announced Tuesday. In the meantime, the society urged people with MS to be patient and continue with their regular treatment until there is more evidence about the experimental procedure. © CBC 2009

Keyword: Multiple Sclerosis
Link ID: 13498 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By By Carolyn Y. Johnson More than two centuries ago, the Italian scientist Luigi Galvani found that electricity could make a dead frog’s leg kick, as if it were alive. Today, using the same basic principle but new tools, scientists are employing light to trigger brain cells - looking not for a kick, but for the origins of emotions, behaviors, and diseases in the brain. Advanced imaging technologies have given neuroscientists new ways to peer into the working mind, but a precise understanding of how 100 billion brain cells create everything from memories to mental illness has remained elusive. Now, by using gene therapy to insert light-sensitive proteins from algae and other organisms into brain cells, scientists are able to control specific brain circuits with light, and then watch what happens. It’s a big shift, said Dr. Karl Deisseroth, a neuroscientist and psychiatrist at Stanford University, who compares the difference between imaging the brain and triggering individual cells to learning the rules of football by watching the game on a high-end TV or by controlling players. “It wouldn’t matter how good your video camera was or your TV was; it would still be very mysterious, and that’s imaging,’’ Deisseroth said. The new technology, on the other hand, “allows you to play the role of coach and understand things.’’ © 2009 NY Times Co.

Keyword: Genes & Behavior; Brain imaging
Link ID: 13497 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By NATALIE ANGIER As the festival of mandatory gratitude looms into view, allow me to offer a few suggestions on what, exactly, you should be thankful for. Be thankful that, on at least one occasion, your mother did not fend off your father with a pair of nunchucks, but instead allowed enough contact to facilitate your happy conception. Be thankful that when you go to buy a pale, poultrylike entity, the grocery clerk will accept your credit card in good faith and even return it with a heroic garble of your last name. Be grateful for the empathetic employee working the United Airlines ticket counter the day after Thanksgiving, who understands why you must leave town today, this very minute, lest someone pull out the family nunchucks. Above all, be thankful for your brain’s supply of oxytocin, the small, celebrated peptide hormone that, by the looks of it, helps lubricate our every prosocial exchange, the thousands of acts of kindness, kind-of kindness and not-as-nakedly-venal-as-I-could-have-been kindness that make human society possible. Scientists have long known that the hormone plays essential physiological roles during birth and lactation, and animal studies have shown that oxytocin can influence behavior too, prompting voles to cuddle up with their mates, for example, or to clean and comfort their pups. Now a raft of new research in humans suggests that oxytocin underlies the twin emotional pillars of civilized life, our capacity to feel empathy and trust. Copyright 2009 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Emotions; Hormones & Behavior
Link ID: 13496 - Posted: 06.24.2010

BRUSSELS - For 23 torturous years, Rom Houben says he lay trapped in his paralyzed body, aware of what was going on around him but unable to tell anyone or even cry out. The car-crash victim had been diagnosed as being in a vegetative state but appears to have been conscious the whole time. An expert using a specialized type of brain scan that was not available in the 1980s finally realized it, and unlocked Houben’s mind again. The 46-year-old Houben is now communicating with one finger and a special touchscreen on his wheelchair. “Powerlessness. Utter powerlessness. At first I was angry, then I learned to live with it,” he said, punching the message into the screen during an interview with the Belgian RTBF network, aired Monday. He has called his rescue his “renaissance.” Over the years, Houben’s family refused to accept the word of his doctors, firmly believing their son knew what was happening around him, and gave no thought to letting him die, said his mother, Fina. She was vindicated when the breakthrough came. “At that moment, you think, ‘Oh, my God. See, now you know.’ I was always convinced,” she said in a telephone interview with The Associated Press. The discovery took place three years ago but only recently came to light, after publication of a study on the misdiagnosis of people with consciousness disorders. Copyright 2009 The Associated Press.

Keyword: Miscellaneous
Link ID: 13495 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Owen Flanagan, contributor In his autobiographical Confessions, Augustine of Hippo recounts a strange sight: his teacher, Ambrose, reading to himself. At the time, reading was a public activity; the literate elite, being a rare commodity, would read the Bible aloud to the illiterate masses as a public service. Socrates, many intellectuals' role model, was in all likelihood illiterate. Today we are readers. Evidence suggests that reading - which depends on an alphabet, writing materials, papyrus and such - is only about 5000 years old. The brain in its modern form is about 200,000 years old, yet brain imaging shows reading taking place in the same way and in the same place in all brains. To within a few millimetres, human brains share a reading hotspot - what Stanislas Dehaene calls the "letterbox" - on the bottom of the left hemisphere. Dehaene builds his clear and interesting book around this "reading paradox," which is really more puzzle than paradox. It is standard procedure in cognitive neuroscience to assume that a brain area dedicated to a particular function - especially when it is universal - is an adaptation that evolved to serve a function related to reproductive success. The letterbox, however, cannot be an adaptation because reading is an utterly recent invention, unlike neurological abilities for language and socialising that were around long enough to have evolved. What's more, the letterbox does not ride on top of areas used for speech. Instead, it must be an "exaptation": a brain area that evolved to do one thing but has been co-opted to do another. © Copyright Reed Business Information Ltd.

Keyword: Language
Link ID: 13494 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By ALAN SCHWARZ In a shift in the National Football League’s approach to handling concussions, the league will soon require teams to receive advice from independent neurologists while treating players with brain injuries, several people with knowledge of the plan confirmed Sunday. For generations, decisions on when players who sustain concussions should return to play have been made by doctors and trainers employed by the team, raising questions of possible conflicts of interest when coaches and owners want players to return more quickly than proper care would suggest. As scientific studies and anecdotal evidence have found a heightened risk for brain damage, dementia and cognitive decline in retired players, the league has faced barbed criticism from outside experts and, more recently, from Congress over its policies on handling players with concussions. The league and Commissioner Roger Goodell have insisted that the N.F.L.’s policies are safe and that no third-party involvement is necessary, pointing to research by its committee on concussions as proof. But after an embarrassing hearing on the issue before the House Judiciary Committee last month in which the league was compared to the tobacco industry, the N.F.L. seems to have begun to embrace the value of outside opinion. Copyright 2009 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Brain Injury/Concussion
Link ID: 13493 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Scientists have pinpointed a mutated gene as key to the development of some types of glioma brain tumour. The mutation leads to hugely increased levels of a chemical in the brain, which seems to feed the cancer. The Nature study suggests that detecting higher levels of the chemical could provide doctors with a useful diagnostic tool. It also raises hopes that blocking production of the chemical might prevent the cancer getting worse. People with particular brain tumours, such as lower-grade gliomas, often carry a mutated version of a gene that controls production of an enzyme called IDH1. The latest study, by US firm Agios Pharmaceuticals, shows that these mutations change the way the enzyme works and result in the build-up of high levels of a chemical called 2-hydroxyglutarate (2HG) in the brain. Researchers found malignant glioma samples with IDH1 mutations had 100 times more 2HG than similar samples from patients without the mutation. They said measuring 2HG levels could be used to help identify patients with IDH1 mutant brain tumours. Writing in the journal, the researchers said: "This will be important for prognosis as patients with IDH1 mutations live longer than patients with gliomas characterised by other mutations. "In addition, patients with lower-grade gliomas may benefit by the therapeutic inhibition of 2HG production. Inhibition of 2HG production by mutant IDH1 might slow or halt conversion of lower-grade glioma into lethal secondary glioblastoma, changing the course of the disease." (C)BBC

Keyword: Glia
Link ID: 13492 - Posted: 11.24.2009

Research to be published in Glasgow suggests rates of suicide among addicts aged over 35 may be higher than previously thought. The Scottish Drugs Forum (SDF) said older drug users need more support. Of 55,000 chaotic drug users in Scotland, 15,000 or more than 25%, are believed to be 35 or over but they have said services often ignore their needs. SDF chief executive David Liddell said they have been taking drugs for so long, they have simply given up. The older addicts, who are known as the Trainspotting generation from the film starring Ewan McGregor, began drug taking in the late 1980s or 1990s. They account for almost half of all of last year's 574 drugs-related deaths. Of those deaths, 174, (30%) were among 35 to 44-year-olds and 97 (17%) involved people over 45. The findings - taken from surveys of more than 70 drug users and professionals involved in their care - show that the more life-experienced group of problem drug users can frequently be overwhelmed by a combination of past experiences and future barriers which impede their ability to overcome their drug dependency. More than half the older users interviewed by SDF admitted they had had suicidal thoughts. According to SDF director David Liddell this raises new questions about the true nature of drug-related deaths statistics in Scotland which in 2008 reached two record high levels - a total of 574 for all drug-related deaths, including the new high of 370 drug-related deaths among people known to have had a drug problem. He said: "We estimate there are about 15,000 older drug users in Scotland, making up about 27% of the 55,000 people with a drug problem in Scotland. BBC © MMIX

Keyword: Drug Abuse; Depression
Link ID: 13491 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By Diane Mapes In an episode of “Mad Men” earlier this season, a character with some major health issues — stroke and dementia — mysteriously smelled oranges while eating chocolate ice cream. Shortly after, the man dies while standing in line at the A&P. Was the phantom orange scent a warning sign of his impending doom? It’s possible, says Dr. Alan Hirsch of the Smell & Taste Treatment and Research Foundation in Chicago. “By all means, a phantom smell could mean something serious,” says the psychiatrist and nationally recognized smell and taste expert. “It absolutely needs to be evaluated. It could be a tumor – that’s on the top of your list of things to rule out – but it could also be a cyst or some infectious agent housed in the area of the brain where the smell is processed.” Brief episodes of phantom smells or phantosmia – smelling something that’s not there – can be triggered by temporal lobe seizures, epilepsy, or head trauma. Phantosmia is also associated with Alzheimer’s and occasionally with the onset of a migraine. But it’s not typically something sweet that’s conjured up by the brain. “It’s usually more unpleasant stuff or odors that are hard to describe,” says Hirsch. “People will say it’s chemical-like or talk about a burning smell.” © 2009 Microsoft

Keyword: Chemical Senses (Smell & Taste); Epilepsy
Link ID: 13490 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By PAM BELLUCK Science has never given much credence to claims that you can learn French or Chinese by having the instruction CDs play while you sleep. If any learning happens that way, most scientists say, the language lesson is probably waking the sleeper up, not causing nouns and verbs to seep into a sound-asleep mind. But a new study about a different kind of audio approach during sleep gives insight into how the sleeping brain works, and might eventually come in handy to people studying a language, cramming for a test or memorizing lines in a play. Scientists at Northwestern University report that playing specific sounds while people slept helped them remember more of what they had learned before they fell sleep, to the point where memories of individual facts were enhanced. In a study published online Thursday by the journal Science, researchers taught people to move 50 pictures to their correct locations on a computer screen. Each picture was accompanied by a related sound — meow for a cat, whirring for a helicopter, for example. Then, 12 subjects took a nap, during which 25 of the sounds were played along with white noise as they slept. When they awoke, none realized that the sounds had been played or could guess which ones had been used. Yet, almost all remembered more precisely the computer locations of the pictures associated with the 25 sounds that had been played while they slept, doing less well placing the other 25 pictures. Copyright 2009 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Sleep; Learning & Memory
Link ID: 13489 - Posted: 06.24.2010

by Frans de Waal What intrigues me most about laughter is how it spreads. It’s almost impossible not to laugh when everybody else is. There have been laughing epidemics, in which no one could stop and some even died in a prolonged fit. There are laughing churches and laugh therapies based on the healing power of laughter. The must-have toy of 1996—Tickle Me Elmo—laughed hysterically after being squeezed three times in a row. All of this because we love to laugh and can’t resist joining laughing around us. This is why comedy shows on television have laugh tracks and why theater audiences are sometimes sprinkled with “laugh plants”: people paid to produce raucous laughing at any joke that comes along. The infectiousness of laughter even works across species. Below my office window at the Yerkes Primate Center, I often hear my chimps laugh during rough-and-tumble games, and I cannot suppress a chuckle myself. It’s such a happy sound. Tickling and wrestling are the typical laugh triggers for apes, and probably the original ones for humans. The fact that tickling oneself is notoriously ineffective attests to its social significance. And when young apes put on their play face, their friends join in with the same expression as rapidly and easily as humans do with laughter. Shared laughter is just one example of our primate sensitivity to others. Instead of being Robinson Crusoes sitting on separate islands, we’re all interconnected, both bodily and emotionally. This may be an odd thing to say in the West, with its tradition of individual freedom and liberty, but Homo sapiens is remarkably easily swayed in one emotional direction or another by its fellows.

Keyword: Emotions; Evolution
Link ID: 13488 - Posted: 06.24.2010