Scientists Discover Your Brain Uses Two Completely Different Types of Laughter

Not all laughter comes from the same place in the brain.

A new scientific review has found that humans actually have two separate brain systems responsible for laughter. One controls genuine, spontaneous laughter driven by emotion, while the other produces deliberate, social laughter used during conversations and interactions.

Researchers say the emotional system is linked to brain regions involved in reward and feelings of joy, while the voluntary system helps us laugh politely, signal friendliness or strengthen social bonds even when something isn’t genuinely funny.

The discovery could help scientists better understand neurological conditions that cause inappropriate or uncontrollable laughter, while also offering new insights into why laughter plays such an important role in human relationships.

So the next time someone gives you a polite laugh, your brain may already know it wasn’t quite the real thing.