Center for Interdisciplinary Brain Sciences Research, Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, CA, United States of America.
Departments of Radiology and Pediatrics, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, CA, United States of America.
PLoS One. 2021 Dec 8;16(12):e0259422. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0259422. eCollection 2021.
Humor is crucial for social development. Despite this, very few studies have examined the neurodevelopment of humor in very young children, and none to date have used functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) to study this important cognitive construct. The main aim of the current study was to characterize the neural basis of humor processing in young children between the ages of 6-8 years. Thirty-five healthy children (6-8 years old) watched funny and neutral video clips while undergoing fNIRS imaging. We observed activation increases in left temporo-occipito-parietal junction (TOPJ), inferior-parietal lobe (IPL), dorsolateral-prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) and right inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) and superior parietal lobe (SPL) regions. Activation in left TOPJ was positively correlated with age. In addition, we found that coherence increased in humor viewing compared to neutral content, mainly between remote regions. This effect was different for boys and girls, as boys showed a more pronounced increase in coherence for funny compared to neutral videos, more so in frontoparietal networks. These results expand our understanding of the neurodevelopment of humor by highlighting the effect of age on the neural basis of humor appreciation as well as emphasizing different developmental trajectories of boys and girls.
幽默对于社会发展至关重要。尽管如此，很少有研究探讨过非常年幼的儿童的幽默神经发育，而且迄今为止，还没有使用功能近红外光谱 (fNIRS) 来研究这一重要的认知结构。本研究的主要目的是描述 6-8 岁儿童的幽默处理的神经基础。35 名健康儿童（6-8 岁）在接受 fNIRS 成像的同时观看有趣和中性的视频片段。我们观察到左颞顶枕颞叶联合区 (TOPJ)、下顶叶 (IPL)、背外侧前额叶皮质 (DLPFC) 和右侧额下回 (IFG) 和顶叶上回 (SPL) 区域的激活增加。左 TOPJ 的激活与年龄呈正相关。此外，我们发现与中性内容相比，幽默观看时的相干性增加，主要发生在远程区域之间。这种影响在男孩和女孩之间不同，因为与中性视频相比，男孩在有趣的视频中表现出更明显的相干性增加，在前顶叶网络中更为明显。这些结果通过强调年龄对幽默欣赏神经基础的影响，以及强调男孩和女孩不同的发展轨迹，扩展了我们对幽默神经发育的理解。
