Next time you're at a party, you may want to skip the cocaine and prowl around for some laughter, instead. Just as love has been coined "a drug" based on the effects it has on our brain's neurotransmitters - especially dopamine - it turns out that laughter can invoke a high in your mind similar to that found after snorting some "blow".
Functional MRI scans are frequently used today in order to determine how a person's brain reacts to all sorts of stimuli. In a research study carried out at Stanford University in California, a comical cartoon activated one of the same brain regions as a shot of cocaine did - the nucleus accumbens.
The nucleus accumbens lit up seconds after the subjects involved in the study found the comic hilarious while comics that were deemed to not be so funny by the subjects failed to affect the region. This nucleus of the brain is awash with the feel good chemical, dopamine, which is one of the brain chemicals involved when we are high on love, or high on cocaine.
The other great thing about laughter is that it doesn't damage the brain. I can't say the same thing about cocaine, and perhaps I will write a column one of these days about all the nasty things street drugs do to our brains.
D.
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