Humor Modulates the Mesolimbic Reward Centers
Open accessAbstract
Humor plays an essential role in many facets of human life including psychological, social, and somatic functioning. Recently, neuroimaging has been applied to this critical human attribute, shedding light on the affective, cognitive, and motor networks involved in humor processing. To date, however, researchers have failed to demonstrate the subcortical correlates of the most fundamental feature of humor-reward. In an effort to elucidate the neurobiological substrate that subserves the reward components of humor, we undertook a high-field (3 Tesla) event-related functional MRI study. Here we demonstrate that humor modulates activity in several cortical regions, and we present new evidence that humor engages a network of subcortical regions including the nucleus accumbens, a key component of the mesolimbic dopaminergic reward system. Further, the degree of humor intensity was positively correlated with BOLD signal intensity in these regions. Together, these findings offer new insight into the neural basis of salutary aspects of humor.
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The ventral striatum is more active when individuals process positive or humorous stimuli.
“The ventral striatum is also more active when individuals are processing positive or humorous stimuli (pictures, films, etc; (Mobbs, Greicius, Abdel-Azim, Menon, & Reiss, 2003)”
From Gender Differences in Emotion Regulation: An fMRI Study of Cognitive Reappraisal (2008) · cites this paper as Mobbs, Greicius, Abdel-Azim, Menon, & Reiss, 2003
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- Authors
- Mobbs, D., Greicius, M. D., Abdel-Azim, E., Menon, V., & Reiss, A. L.
- Affiliations
- Stanford Medicine (US)
- Corresponding author
- Reiss, Allan L
- Venue
- Neuron
- Publisher
- Elsevier BV
- Published
- 2003-12
- Volume
- 40
- Issue
- 5
- Pages
- 1041-1048
- ISSN
- 0896-6273 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W2172155383
- Cited by
- 440
- References
- 7
- Citations by year
- 2026: 11 · 2025: 8 · 2024: 30 · 2023: 28 · 2022: 19 · 2021: 18 · 2020: 13 · 2019: 22 · 2018: 17 · 2017: 17 · 2016: 20 · 2015: 20 · 2014: 12 · 2013: 24 · 2012: 28
- FWCI
- 17.95
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- bronze
- doi.org
- Licence
- www.elsevier.com/tdm/userlicense/1.0/ (tdm)
- www.elsevier.com/legal/tdmrep-license (tdm)
- www.elsevier.com/open-access/userlicense/1.0/ (vor, 3516 d)
- doi.org/10.15223/policy-017 (stm-asf)
- doi.org/10.15223/policy-037 (stm-asf)
- doi.org/10.15223/policy-012 (stm-asf)
- doi.org/10.15223/policy-029 (stm-asf)
- doi.org/10.15223/policy-004 (stm-asf)
- Locations
- Neuron (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- CaltechAUTHORS (California Institute of Technology) (submittedVersion)
- Funders
- National Institutes of Health (MH01142)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Humor Studies and Applications
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Neural and Behavioral Psychology Studies
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cellular and Molecular Neuroscience › Neurotransmitter Receptor Influence on Behavior
- Keywords
- humor, mesolimbic reward system, nucleus accumbens, dopaminergic reward
- MeSH terms
- Adult, Brain Mapping, Cartoons as Topic, Dopamine, Female, Humans, Limbic System, Magnetic Resonance Imaging, Male, Reward, Wit and Humor as Topic, Linear Models
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