Just in case more evidence was needed that men and women are different just look at some cartoons, because according to a new Stanford University School of Medicine study, gender affects the way a person's brain responds to humour.
According to the researchers women are more likely than men to enjoy a good joke because they are expecting less from the punch-line.
In this novel imaging study, Professor Allan Reiss and colleagues, scanned the brains of 10 men and 10 women as they watched cartoons.
The imaging showed that women activate the parts of the brain involved in language processing and working memory more than men when watching funny cartoons, and were far more likely to activate with greater intensity the part of the brain that generates rewarding feelings in response to new experiences.
They found that while both groups on the whole found the same cartoons to be funny and displayed similar neurological responses, the women in the group used the part of the brain that processes rewards more than the men did.
While previous studies have shown gender differences in the use and appreciation of humour and the meaning and function of laughter, no previous research has examined sex-specific differences in the brain's response to humour.
Reiss says it appeared that the women had less of an expectation of a reward, which in this case was the punch-line of the cartoon, so when they did get to the joke's punch-line, they were more pleased about it.
Allan Reiss, MD, is the Howard C. Robbins Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences and director of the Center for Interdisciplinary Brain Sciences Research, he says the results help explain previous findings suggesting women and men differ in how humour is used and appreciated, could lead to a better understanding of medical conditions such as depression and cataplexy, in which a sudden loss of motor control is precipitated by strong emotions, most notably humor.