Mapping the differential impact of spontaneous and conversational laughter on brain and mind: an fMRI study in autism.

Autor:	Cai CQ; Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, University College London, London WC1N 3AZ, United Kingdom., Lavan N; Department of Biological and Experimental Psychology, School of Biological and Behavioural Sciences, Queen Mary University of London, London E1 4NS, United Kingdom., Chen SHY; Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, University College London, London WC1N 3AZ, United Kingdom., Wang CZX; Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, University College London, London WC1N 3AZ, United Kingdom., Ozturk OC; Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, University College London, London WC1N 3AZ, United Kingdom., Chiu RMY; Department of Social and Behavioural Sciences, City University of Hong Kong, Tat Chee Avenue, Kowloon, Hong Kong SAR., Gilbert SJ; Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, University College London, London WC1N 3AZ, United Kingdom., White SJ; Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, University College London, London WC1N 3AZ, United Kingdom., Scott SK; Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, University College London, London WC1N 3AZ, United Kingdom.
Jazyk:	angličtina
Zdroj:	Cerebral cortex (New York, N.Y. : 1991) [Cereb Cortex] 2024 May 02; Vol. 34 (5).
DOI:	10.1093/cercor/bhae199
Abstrakt:	Spontaneous and conversational laughter are important socio-emotional communicative signals. Neuroimaging findings suggest that non-autistic people engage in mentalizing to understand the meaning behind conversational laughter. Autistic people may thus face specific challenges in processing conversational laughter, due to their mentalizing difficulties. Using fMRI, we explored neural differences during implicit processing of these two types of laughter. Autistic and non-autistic adults passively listened to funny words, followed by spontaneous laughter, conversational laughter, or noise-vocoded vocalizations. Behaviourally, words plus spontaneous laughter were rated as funnier than words plus conversational laughter, and the groups did not differ. However, neuroimaging results showed that non-autistic adults exhibited greater medial prefrontal cortex activation while listening to words plus conversational laughter, than words plus genuine laughter, while autistic adults showed no difference in medial prefrontal cortex activity between these two laughter types. Our findings suggest a crucial role for the medial prefrontal cortex in understanding socio-emotionally ambiguous laughter via mentalizing. Our study also highlights the possibility that autistic people may face challenges in understanding the essence of the laughter we frequently encounter in everyday life, especially in processing conversational laughter that carries complex meaning and social ambiguity, potentially leading to social vulnerability. Therefore, we advocate for clearer communication with autistic people. (© The Author(s) 2024. Published by Oxford University Press.)
Databáze:	MEDLINE
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