Laughter

December 8, 2003 12:20 PM

Laughter may or may not be the best medicine, but researchers have discovered it's a good drug, at least.
posted by Spezzatura (9 comments total)

I'm high on life!
posted by Down10 at 12:25 PM on December 8, 2003

I gave a sermon on this exact topic at my church last summer. I think this is old news, but I'm not poo-pooing it!
posted by PigAlien at 12:28 PM on December 8, 2003

The nucleus accumbens is awash with the feelgood chemical dopamine. The region's buzz may explain the euphoria that follows a good joke, the team suggests. Earlier investigations found that humour triggers brain regions that work out a joke's language and meaning, or those that control smiling and laughter.
Boiling laughter down to a science will leave little of the joke.
posted by thomcatspike at 1:15 PM on December 8, 2003

A wise crack too?
posted by Postroad at 2:08 PM on December 8, 2003

Yah? Well, I'm poo pooing it! Just as claiming alcoholism as a disease ruined all the fun in getting drunk, so too does buzzwording laughter into a narcotic threaten to undermine the concept of fun for untold generations to come. Cuz there's a war on them there drugs and I for one refuse to turn in my whoopie cushion! Those darned christian fundamentalistic conservative right-winger zealous unfunny wet blankets should just quit trying to save the world already. There's some things that don't need fixin'. Just say yes to dinitrogen monoxide! and for those with no sense of humor, the above was an attempt at same, which will no doubt be illegal by 2005.
posted by ZachsMind at 2:28 PM on December 8, 2003

Kelley, for example, has studied people's brains while they watched episodes of television comedies Seinfeld and The Simpsons. "It's surprising it's not consistent," he says.

Coolest fMRI Study Ever.
posted by Gif at 2:31 PM on December 8, 2003

The cartoons activated the same reward circuits in the brain that are tickled by cocaine, money or a pretty face, the neuroscientists found...The nucleus accumbens is awash with the feelgood chemical dopamine. The region's buzz may explain the euphoria that follows a good joke, the team suggests...Kelley, for example, has studied people's brains while they watched episodes of television comedies Seinfeld and The Simpsons. "It's surprising it's not consistent," he says.

Hmmm... in the other studies, did they discover the areas were stimulated by giving them coke? What are the ethics of that?
posted by dash_slot- at 2:41 PM on December 8, 2003

Love is the drug.
posted by jonp72 at 3:35 PM on December 8, 2003

All you better not be using laughter as a means to spiritual enlightenment. That devil may getcha! It's like cocaine!
posted by five fresh fish at 4:30 PM on December 8, 2003