User:Gpool

JIMMY'S BRAIN


Laughter buzz

By passing the current through this region, located on the left-hand side of the brain, Jimmy could be made to laugh uncontrollably - even when there was nothing funnier going on than a group of men standing around in white coats.

Low voltages made him smile. As the current increased, so did his mirth. Finally, "a robust and contagious laughter was induced," the science journal Nature reported.

Jimmy told the team: "You guys are just so funny standing around."

Stimulating other areas of Jimmy's brain did not produce similar results.

Surgeon Dr Itzhak Fried, who led the team that made the discovery, told the BBC: "We have not seen this before in our studies."

He said Jimmy would always link his good humour with the external stimulus present at the time.

Hilarious horse

"Whatever he was doing at the time he would attribute the laughter to that activity. If he was looking at a picture of a horse, he would say the horse was so funny.

"We got the impression that he was enjoying it. It was a pleasant experience for him."

But Dr Fried was uncertain if the results of his work could be repeated. "I think obviously this is a very particular clinical situation," he said.

"We just tapped into perhaps one area in a very complex network. It was very close to areas that carry some speech function, so speech and laughter are very close together."