Why Do We Laugh? The Origins of the Social Brain

CYCLE: Reasons and Passions. From Classical Greece to Neuroscience
SPEAKER: Fausto Caruana
DATE: Thursday, February 12, 6:00 PM

Why do we laugh? Since ancient Greece, philosophers have proposed different hypotheses to explain what is probably our most frequent behavior. However, they have almost systematically made two main mistakes. The first is linking laughter to humor. The second is assuming that laughter is a uniquely human behavior. More than two thousand years after those original formulations, neuroscience and ethology now offer an alternative, naturalistic, and evolutionary history. A story that begins with the idea that our species is not the only one that laughs, and that in fact, it is by studying animal laughter that we can answer the opening question, taking us back to the origins of our social brain.

Fausto Caruana is a Lead Researcher at the Institute of Neuroscience of the CNR (National Research Council) and a lecturer in Neuroscience of Language at the University of Parma. His research concerns the neural bases of motor and emotional behaviors and their perception mediated by the mirror neuron system. He has a strongly interdisciplinary background and conducts his research through collaborations with scholars from other disciplines, including neurology, neurosurgery, ethology, and philosophy of mind. He is the author of several books on cognitive neuroscience, including “Why We Laugh. At the Origins of the Social Brain" (2024, with E. Palagi) and “How Emotions Work. From Darwin to Neuroscience"(2018, with M. Viola), both published by Il Mulino.

Free admission subject to availability.
Reservations at the link.