Laughter Reduces Severity of Stress-Related Brain Damage

Laughter not only reduces stress, but it may actually help reduce the severity of the damage that stress inflicts to the brain.

Researchers have determined that regularly laughing actually mitigates some of the damage that would normally be caused by cortisol -- a stress-related hormone that causes damage to neurons in the brain -- and even potentially improves memory in aging adults.

Researchers from Loma Linda University (LLU) presented these findings on Sunday at the Experimental Biology meeting in San Diego, California.

According to the LLU research team, they set out to capitalize on past research that has determined that laughter reduces natural stress levels, preventing stress-related damage such as memory loss and even the adverse effects of diabetes. The researchers theorized that laughter could not only prevent stress, but also reduce the effects of stress that still occurs.

To prove this, the team showed a 20 minute funny video to a group of healthy elderly individuals and a group of elderly individuals with diabetes. Both groups were then asked to complete a memory test that measured factors such as learning ability, memory recall, and visual recognition. However, a third of the participants from both groups were asked to complete the test without watching the funny video. The cortical levels -- which have been shown to negatively affect memory by damaging neurons in the brain -- of each participant was recorded before and after these experiments.

Predictably, the researchers found that cortisol levels for both diabetics and non-diabetics were significantly lower among the individuals who laughed at the video, compared to those who did not watch it.

More importantly, the researchers were also able to determine that the groups that watched the video scored consistently higher on the memory tests, compared to the groups that did not watch the video. Interestingly, the diabetic group showed the greatest memory improvement and cortical reduction after laughing.

"So, indeed, laughter is turning out to be not only a good medicine, but also a memory enhancer adding to our quality of life," study co-author Dr. Lee Berk said in a press release prior to his team's presentation.

Until the study is published in a peer-reviewed journal, the aforementioned results should be viewed as preliminary findings.

The results were presented at the Experimental Biology meeting in San Diego, California on April 27.

A press release was published prior to the presentation on April 24.