The First Known Case of Laughter-Induced Seizures

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Laughter is an almost entirely pleasurable experience, a manifestation of joy. But for one 43-year-old Caucasian man, laughter did not engender improved well being. Instead, it triggered seizures. Doctors detail the fascinatingly bizarre affliction in the Journal of Medical Case Reports. In each instance, the man, whose name was not given in the report, described to doctors that he would be watching comedy shows on television and would start laughing. Then, his arms would start shaking and he felt like "his consciousness was being vacuumed away." At first, physicians didn't believe him, insisting that his symptoms were side effects of his bipolar disorder. "It was frustrating for me to not be believed, to have multiple doctors tell me that all of my problems were psychiatric," the man said. Eventually, however, a team admitted the man for monitoring at a hospital, and their examinations quickly corroborated his account. Researchers discovered that a bout of "deep belly" laughing would prompt the man to unresponsively and blankly stare ahead, and then cause his eyes to roll back. Each occurrence lasted approximately five to ten seconds. Accompanying measures of brain activity registered high-amplitude spikes in the frontotemporal region of the brain, confirming that the seizures were indeed genuine. The researchers could not pinpoint a cause for why laughter would provoke seizure activity, but they were able to effectively treat the condition with carbamezepine, an anti-convulsant drug typically prescribed to epileptics, and by encouraging the man to avoid situations that might induce energetic laughter. "Avoid laughing." What an unfortunate remedy. Source: Naba Raj Mainali, Leena Jalota, Madan Aryal, Torrey R Schmidt, Madan Badal and Richard Alweis. "Laugh-induced seizure: a case report." Journal of Medical Case Reports 2013, 7:123 doi:10.1186/1752-1947-7-123