According to recent research by scientists at Bowling Green, laughter might have more to do with good hard-wiring than the hilarity of jokes, reality TV, or everyday life.
"The recognition by neuroscientists that the brain mechanisms underlying pain, pleasure, fear, and lust are the same in humans and other mammals underscores our similarity to other species and is extremely important," said Tecumseh Fitch, a psychology lecturer at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland.
In a 2003 study Panksepp and Bowling Green State University neurobiologist Jeff Burgdorf demonstrated that if rats are tickled in a playful way, they readily chirp. Rats that were tickled bonded with the researchers and became rapidly conditioned to seek tickles.
Understanding the chirping of the rats may help scientists better understand human laughter.
"Deciphering the neutral circuitry of playful chirping in rats is an important goal of future research," Panksepp writes in his Science article. "Such knowledge may help to reveal how joking and horsing around emerged in our expansive higher brain regions."
Isn't there something tantalizing about the deciphering of "playful chirping" being cast as an important research goal? If Rousseau had just delved into chirping, Emile might have turned out alright after all.
