Tracing the Neural Circuitry of Humor

…which parts of the brain carry out these processes? To find out, Joseph Moran, then at Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire, used functional MRI to scan the brains of volunteers while they watched popular TV sitcoms. The experiments revealed a distinct pattern of neural activity that occurs in response to a funny joke, with the left posterior temporal gyrus and left inferior frontal gyrus seeing the most activity.

…then at Stanford University in California, uncovered a second spike of activity in the brain’s limbic system - associated with dopamine release and reward processing - which may explain the pleasure felt once you “get” the joke.

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