Since the science of humor is in the news today, I thought I'd point out an interesting tidbit from a recent Cerebral Cortex paper:
The speculation that humor may be a uniquely human cognitive trait (Bergson 1924; Caron 2002) prompted our third hypothesis: humor will activate both anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) and frontoinsula cortex (FI), the 2 regions in which an evolutionarily recent neuron type, the Von Economo cells (previously termed ''spindle neurons''), are present. A review of the functional imaging literature reveals that the Von Economo cell regions, particularly FI, are active while reversal learning (O'Doherty and others 2001), decision making under uncertain conditions (Critchley and others 2001), and observing bizarre images of animal/object chimeras (Michelon and others 2003). Like humor, these paradigms involve incongruity detection and reappraisal and provided the impetus to formally test the hypothesis that humor activates the Von Economo regions ACC and FI.
Mirror neurons get all the glory, but I think spindle cells just might be even cooler. Unlike the rest of our neurons, which are generally short and bushy, spindle brain cells are long and gangly. They are also found only in humans and great apes (and perhaps whales), which suggests that their evolution was intertwined with higher cognition. (Humans have about a thousand times more spindle cells than any other primate.)
So what do spindle cells do? Why did human evolution devote so much attention to this particular kind of neuron? The strange structure of spindle cells their unique function: their antenna-like cell body is able to convey our social emotions across the entire brain. After your cortex receives an emotional input, spindle cells use their cellular velocity - they transmit electrical signals faster than any other neuron - to make sure that the rest of the cortex is also saturated in that specific feeling. In other words, your spindle cells hear the punchline, and then make sure that your other brain areas also get the joke.
The developmental timing of spindle cells hints at their larger purpose. While spindle cells begin to form around the age of four months, they don't start to work until the second year of life, which is precisely when our social emotions--like shame, anger and guilt--also begin to appear. Spindle cells are concentrated in an area of the orbitofrontal cortex that is exquisitely sensitive to the emotional reactions of others. (This is why laughter is so contagious.) Spindle cells are also abundant in the ACC, the same brain region that is activated by difficult moral dilemmas, funny jokes and moments of self-control. I could go on and on, but it's better for you to just sit down and read the collected works of John Allman, the world authority on spindle cells.
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hey there, I read the blog often and like what I read about as often.
But this doesn't as a statement make any sense "their antenna-like cell body is able to convey our social emotions across the entire brain". Neurons fire action potentials and the best they can conduct is patterns of firing or epsps/ipsps. They can't convey something as complex as 'social emotions'! That sounds like very sloppy thinking, even if they conduct something, some pattern, some information, to other brain regions its not 'saturating other brain regions with the same feeling'.
Maybe I should read the original papers, and it will be clearer?
Hey.. I read this paper, and for what its worth, seems to me the entire bloody brain is sensitive to humor (green in Figure 4), including the (unsexy) temporal cortex. bilateral inferior frontal gyri and more.
But wait, activity that correlates with subjective feeling of funniness (fig 2,3) is also found in white matter (!!) and the ventricles (!) so how much can we trust the rest of the data? (and SPM has the unsettling tendency to project both sulcal and gyral activity to the surface of the cortex in their graphical displays, which is misleading)
So lets put some of this in context: Von Economo cells are part of a larger system (just like mirror neurons are part of larger systems), and possible involved in the integration of information that is needed to 'get' jokes (especially verbal ones). Focusing on them, for whatever reason, in this article is likely to be as an arbitrary political decision akin to those papers that focus on "mirror neuron areas" when its clear the entire brain is involved in imitation.
While I'm on a rant, it also ticks me off that the graphs they report (say, Figure 2,6) are for single voxels that show the maximal magnitude of the effects they are interested in. one voxel. For god's sake. 3.2 X 3.2 X 3 mm, and from that we're supposed to deduce (or "induce") that this activity held throughout ACC / F1? They should have taken the entire region as an ROI and given the bar graphs.
Yep, I wasn't a reviewer on this one but if I had been you wouldn't be reading this paper in current and drawing some possibly unfounded conclusions.
.............? no affence but i cant under-stand
im at secondary school and i need some imfo about spindle cells that i understand please help me!!!!!!!!
I went to the doctor and he stated that he doesnât do that type of thing. Iâm just a little over 200 pounds it wasnât like i was asking for bypass surgery but i he couldnât do something for me. So which variety of physician do you imply, i just need a bit guidance/help and i was turned away, so iâm so confused now.
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