WOMEN use more brain power and take longer than men to understand jokes but derive more pleasure from a good punchline, according to scientists.
Experiments at Stanford University in California found that women use more parts of the brain than men to process jokes and have less expectation that they will find them funny.
The findings are part of an emerging body of research helping scientists to unravel the mystery of how our sense of humour works.
Advances in functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) technology have allowed researchers to monitor how men and women respond to humour differently by observing their brain activity.
In one Stanford study, 10 women and 10 men were placed in an fMRI scanner and shown 70 black-and-white cartoons on a…