Question: Is it true lauging has something to do with our brain?

Ian van der Linde answered on 11 Jun 2011:

This is similar to a question by Luke, so I’ll copy my response to him and then add something else:

“Good question! Monkeys and other animals make laughter-like sounds too (rather like heavy panting) when they’re doing something enjoyable like being chased or tickled, so laughter isn’t just human. A theory is that laughter is a way of communicating with our peers during “play” – to let them know that we’re willingly participating or paying attention to them.

Researchers have found that people very rarely laugh on their own, so it’s all about communication with others – however, given that we know that animals do it too, its likely that laughing is a very old and primitive form of communication that evolved much earlier that speech!”

So, yes, laughter is definitely a brain “function”, just like other forms of communication, and there are scientists trying to find out which areas of the brain are activated when we find something funny! We also know that laughter is infectious — when we see somebody laughing, it makes us smile or laugh too. This is because there are special brain cells called “mirror neurons” that help us to understand what other people are thinking (empathy) – with laughter there seems to be a particularly strong mirror neuron response!