V.S. Ramachandran’s professional interest in laughter began about ten years ago in Vellore, India, when he was asked to evaluate a patient with a bad case of pain asymbolia. Pain asymbolia is a rare condition, which causes people to misinterpret the physical symptoms of pain. While victims are aware of “painful” sensations, they don’t associate them with feelings of suffering. This condition is almost too bizarre to comprehend, but Ramachandran’s description of his consultation paints a fairly clear picture:

. . . [when] I took a needle and pricked him with [it] to determine . . . his pain sensations . . . he started giggling, telling me: doctor, I feel the pain but it doesn't hurt. It feels very funny, like a tickle and he would start laughing uncontrollably.

(From BBC Reith Lecture 1)

The irony of this reaction made Ramachandran stop to consider the underlying purpose of laughter. In his view, it’s a singularly odd behavior:

. . . [A] martian ethologist watching all of [you] would be very surprised . . . Every now and then all of [you] stop what you're doing, shake your head, make this funny staccato rhythmic . . . hyena-like sound. Why do you do it?

Convinced that the ability to laugh was hard-wired in the human brain, Ramachandran set out to discover why this behavior had evolved. First, he tried to pinpoint what makes something “funny.” After much musing, he came to the conclusion that:

. . . [T]he common denominator of all jokes and humour [sic] despite all the diversity is that you take a person along a garden path of expectation and at the very end you suddenly introduce an unexpected twist that entails a complete re-interpretation of all the previous facts. That's called a punch-line of the joke.

(From BBC Reith Lecture 1)

But this was not enough to explain laughter or “every great scientific discovery . . . would be funny,” Ramachandran concluded. Something is funny, he determined, only if the resulting shift in your perception is of “trivial consequence.” This is all a bit abstract, so let me provide a couple of examples.

According to Ramachandran’s thesis, Watergate was not funny. Why? Because while the revelation that the President of the United States was a felon required a “complete re-interpretation of . . . previous facts," the punch line had dire implications.

Now try this:

Why did the scientist install a knocker on his door?

Answer: So he could win the No-Bell prize.

(From Dumb Jokes)

Okay, granted, it’s not terribly funny. (I challenge you to find a joke that meets the standards of political correctness. It’s not as easy as it sounds.) The point here is: jokes elicit a chuckle, because they alter our perception in superficial way.

So, why are we programmed to laugh when a mind-altering experience proves to be trivial? According to Ramachandran, this behavior evolved as a way to diffuse anxiety. In potentially threatening situations, early humans used verbal cues to alert their kin. When these situations turned out to be harmless, humans needed a way to get the message across. Laughter evolved as a way of saying: ‘Hey, I take it back. Everything’s okay.' It's nature’s “false alarm."

Sound suspiciously simple? Well, many neuroscientists and psychologists contend that it is. Still, Ramachandran’s study of the patient suffering from pain asymbolia seems to support his theory:

When we examined his brain, when we [did] the CT scan we found there was damage to the region called the insular cortex . . . The insular cortex receives pain signals . . . From the insular cortex the message goes to the amygdala . . . where you respond emotionally to the pain . . . and take the appropriate action. So my idea was, maybe what's happened on this patient is, the insular cortex is normal. That's why he says, doctor I can feel the pain, but the message, the wire that goes from the insular to the rest of the limbic system and the anterior cingulate is cut.

Therefore you have the two key ingredients you need for laughter and humour [sic], namely one part of the brain signaling [sic] a potential danger . . . but the very next instant the anterior cingulate says but I'm not getting any signal. Big deal, there is no danger here, forget it . . . and the patient starts laughing and giggling uncontrollably, OK.

(From BBC Reith Lecture 1)

Put simply, Ramachandran’s findings suggest that laughter primarily utilizes three areas in the brain: the insular cortex, the amygdala, and the anterior cingulate. The insular cortex produces the physical sensation of pain, while the amygdala processes these sensations into the “feeling of pain.” Once the feeling has registered, the amygdala sends a message to anterior cingulate to activate the “fight or flight” response.

Normal people experiencing pain will retreat from it whenever possible. The Vellore patient, in contrast, simply laughed. He laughed, according to Ramachandran, because the connection between his insular cortex and amygdala was severed. When the amygdala failed to recognize the danger signs, the anterior cingulate short-circuited and sent out the “false alarm” signal--prompting laughter.

While Ramachandran’s findings are still controversial, evidence seems to suggest that his unorthodox approach to brain research is bearing fruit. His belief that neuroscience will usher in a new era of human thought may be grandiose. (Neurontic: The greatest revolution of all) But who knows? He might be right.