FROM a little chuckle to raucous laughter, it鈥檚 all linked to a spot in the
brain鈥檚 frontal lobe, say neurosurgeons in California.
A team led by Itzhak Fried of the University of California at Los Angeles was
using electrodes to map the brain of an epilepsy patient prior to surgery. The
researchers report in this week鈥檚 Nature (vol 391, p 650) that by
chance, they stimulated a region that made her burst out laughing.
鈥淚t was quite striking,鈥� says Fried. 鈥淲eak currents made her smile. If we
increased it, it became robust laughter.鈥� He believes this response is common to
everyone, and is not connected to epilepsy.
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The laughter spot is in the 鈥渟upplementary motor area鈥�, which Fried says lies
intriguingly close to a region that governs speech production. Laughter and
speech are often considered uniquely human abilities.