搞笑的事情为什么会让我们发笑?

Did you ever wonder what happens when something funny happens? I mean, what is this thing we have in our brains that makes us say “ha-ha” when someone slips on a banana?

有没有想过，当搞笑的事情发生在眼前时，（大脑里）发生了什么？我是指，当我们看到有人踩在香蕉皮上滑倒时，究竟是大脑里的什么物质让我们发出“哈哈”的笑声。

One way to find out is to watch the brain laugh. That’s pretty much what Dartmouth neuroscientist William Kelley did. He and his team had a number of volunteers watch an episode of Seinfeld while being monitored by an MRI–that’s a machine that allows researchers to see which parts of the brain are active at any given time. They then synchronized the MRI data with the laugh track to see how the brain changes when it’s registering something funny. There’s no one “funny center” in the brain–but the findings were pretty suggestive.

解决这个问题的方法之一就是观察大脑是怎么“笑”的。达特茅斯的神经学家威廉凯利就对此做了深入研究。他和他的研究小组让一些志愿者观看一段塞恩菲尔德的喜剧，同时用核磁共振仪监视志愿者们的大脑内部变化，以便随时检测出大脑的哪个部分比较活跃。之后，他们把大脑核磁共振得出的数据同笑声的波形图进行契合，以检测出当处理搞笑的信息时，大脑有什么变化。虽然研究中没有发现大脑中存在处理搞笑信息的中枢，但是研究成果还是十分具有指导意义的。

When subjects were looking at something funny, the first thing it happened was that two regions in their left hemispheres lit up. From previous studies these regions are known to be associated with resolving ambiguity. Is there something in “getting it” that’s related to the process by which we work with unclear information until we suddenly see the pattern in it?

当研究对象看到好笑的地方，他们的大脑左半球里有两块区域（在仪器中）最先变亮了。据以往的研究来看，这两块区域与进行模糊判断能力有关。就像当我们做事情时，一开始摸不着头脑，而后突然灵光一现，看清了问题的本质，那时，我们就会兴奋地喊一句“懂了！”。

A couple seconds later two other brain regions became active, called the insula and the amygdala. The insula is associated with emotion, so it seems likely that this is the brain feeling good when it gets the joke–the “ha-ha” response.

几秒钟之后，（研究对象的）大脑的岛叶和杏仁核等其他区域开始活跃了。脑岛与人的情绪有关，看来可能是在接收到好笑的信息时，大脑感觉良好，于是（让身体）做出了“哈哈”的反应。

The amygdala is associated with memory formation. As the researchers point out, while you may not be able to remember every plot detail in a Seinfeld episode, you can probably remember the jokes. Humor stays with us, forming a lasting memory. Get it?

杏仁核和记忆能力有关。正如研究员们指出的那样，虽然你可能记不住喜剧中的每一个情景细节，但是你很可能记住了好笑的地方。好笑的事物能够在我们的大脑里形成长久性记忆，因此不易忘却。这下懂了吧？

Notes:

neuroscientist: 神经学家

insula: 岛叶

amygdala: 杏仁核（大脑区域之一）