Colleagues and students are kindly invited to the third scientific webinar of the MD Program in Cognitive science and Theory of communication for the Academic Year 2023/24 which will be held on Teams on 28th March at 3:30 pm (Italian hour) by Fausto Caruana (Institute of Neuroscience - CNR, Parma). Here the link: https://tinyurl.com/2n5ataya. The webinar is entitled: "Exploring human laughter and its contagion using neuroscientific techniques". I remind that the attendance of the webinar is mandatory in order for the students enrolled in the MD in Cognitive science and Theory of communication to get one credit (CFU/ECTS). The attending students have also to write a 10.000 letter report plus bibliography. Here attached you find the flyer of the event.
Abstract: I will talk about the neuroethology of laughter and how we can provide an explanation for this behavior by challenging two traditional philosophical dogmas: the link between laughter and humor, and the idea that laughter is unique to humans. I will present our findings on the neural basis of laughter obtained through intracranial recording and electrical stimulation in humans, and discuss the hypothesis that laughter contagion depends on the existence of a specific mirror system, distinct from the one active in motor areas for action recognition.