Laughing at a joke and understanding it do not occur in the same areas of the brain

About the episode

Researchers have used Seinfeld episodes to identify areas of the brain involved in enjoying and understanding humor.

For the study, 26 people were placed in an fMRI scanner while being shown parts of the sitcom Seinfeld, among other things. This allowed researchers to study what happens in the brain while processing a humorous message.

And yes: of course taste also plays a role, not every joke is funny for everyone, but what they saw when they looked at the scans is that understanding the joke, logically speaking, comes first and that two small areas of the brain that were not understood and studied before it was drawn in this way are important for this. the purpose.

It concerns an area that plays a role in memory and perception and an area that plays a role in reward. Enjoying a joke, and therefore often laughing at it, only happens in the reward zone.

Dopamine plays an important role in the two brain areas studied. How dopamine is produced and processed in the body may also affect how we take a joke. According to the researchers, this is a very interesting mechanism that should be considered in future research.

Here you can find the paper: Determining the roles of the dorsal and ventral striatum in humor comprehension and appreciation using fMRI