Why being tickled is NOT funny: Sensation activates part of the brain that copes with pain

Researchers in Germany have uncovered the reason why we laugh hysterically when we are tickled - and the answer is not because it is funny.



According to scientists at the University of Tuebingen, tickling activates the part of our brain that anticipates pain - which is why you may accidentally lash out at someone who is trying to tickle you.



Furthermore, the laughter from being tickled is part of a defense mechanism to signal submissiveness and the researchers believe that our responses to tickling date back to man's earliest evolution and developing self-awareness.



Laughter caused by tickling has been discovered by scientists in Germany to be part of a fight or flight mechanism

Our most ticklish parts are coincidentally our weakest spots, such as our neck or our stomach, and so the team at Tuebingen theorize that parents would have tickled their offspring to train them to react to danger and that the laughter of tickling is an acknowledgement of defeat.

Using 30 volunteers and hooking them up to MRI scanners, the researchers original questions was to work out why tickling elicits laughter and is that the same as laughing at a joke or a funny situation.

The participants were asked to laugh at something they found funny and then were stimulated on their feet - while their brains were monitored.

The Rolandic Operculum is activated when a person laughs because of something funny and when tickled

However, unlike genuinely funny laughter, tickling laughs cause the hypothalmus to activate - which controls instinctive reactions such as 'fight or flight'

Both tickling and laughing activated the part of the brain called the Rolandic Operculum that control facial movements and vocal and emotional reactions.



However, tickling laughter and plain funny laughter separated when scientists realized that tickling also stimulates the the hypothalmus which controls body temperature, hunger, tiredness and sexual behavior.



This part of the brain controls instinctive reactions to situations - such as fight or flight.



Indeed, the scientists discoveries cast new light on why some people even start to laugh just with the threat of being tickled.



'When you tickle someone, you actually stimulate the unmyelinated nerve fibers that cause pain,' said Dr. Alan Hirsch, founder of the Smell & Taste Treatment and Research Foundation in Chicago.

