Sex differences in brain activation elicited by humor

• DOI: 10.1073/pnas.0408456102
• Publication Date: 2005-11-08T01:33:47Z
• Authors: Eiman Azim; Dean Mobbs; Booil Jo; Vinod Menon; Allan L. Reiss
• Keywords: Brain mapping; Blood oxygenation

With recent investigation beginning to reveal the cortical and subcortical neuroanatomical correlates of humor appreciation, present event-related functional MRI (fMRI) study was designed elucidate sex-specific recruitment these related networks. Twenty healthy subjects (10 females) underwent fMRI scanning while subjectively rating 70 verbal nonverbal achromatic cartoons as funny or unfunny. Data were analyzed by comparing blood oxygenation-level-dependent signal activation during unfunny stimuli. Males females share an extensive humor-response strategy indicated similar brain regions: both activate temporal-occipital junction temporal pole, structures implicated in semantic knowledge juxtaposition, inferior frontal gyrus, likely be involved language processing. Females, however, left prefrontal cortex more than males, suggesting a greater degree executive processing language-based decoding. Females also exhibit mesolimbic regions, including nucleus accumbens, implying reward network response possibly less expectation. These results indicate differences neural with implications for sex-based disparities integration cognition emotion.