The disease that made you addicted to bad jokes

Imagine a disease whose main symptom is abuse of bad jokesjokes of inappropriate content, very positive self-perception of own jokes, but excellent sarcasm insensitivity. It seems that we are describing a squeaker, but in fact it is a disease known as witzelsucht. People who suffer from it are united by pretense right frontal lobe brain responsible for control of attention and planning of own actions. Hence, when it is damaged, impulsive, selfish or socially incompetent behavior occurs.

First described by a German neurologist Herman Oppenheim at the end of the 19th century. In particular, he treated four cases of people with something like addiction to inappropriate jokes. Also, they exaggeratedly laughed at their own jokes, but didn’t seem to understand sarcasm. For this reason, he decided to call the state Witzelsucht, as in German Witz means joke and such translated as addiction.

All had tumors in right frontal lobe of the brain, so it was clear that this was the origin. And the point at which it would be necessary to influence in order to try to deal with the situation. Since then, several more cases have accumulated in the scientific literature, with slight variations but many commonalities. All of them were launched in adulthood after development brain tumor or injury. So if you’ve been telling bad jokes all your life and laughing at your own jokes, don’t worry. You’re not sick, you just have a weird sense of humor.

When your brain makes you addicted to inappropriate and bad jokes

The jokes and pranks of affected people vary greatly from one to the next. However, they usually have some Common points. For example, they often sexual or political content. Having said that, we must insist: Seriously, the tweeters are fine.

One of the cases found in the scientific literature is the case 54 year old manwith those affected by Pick’s disease. It is a rare neurodegenerative disease that mainly affects the temporal and frontal lobes of the brain. As the disease progressed, the patient began to behave strangely. Among them stood out bad jokes and inappropriate jokes, poor hygiene, childish behavior and excessive laughter to their own phenomena. This was the situation that cost him his job.

His case was described in an article in which the doctors who treated him noted that during the examination he could not control his jokes, often sexual in nature, and then broke out loud laughter. He also started dancing like in a disco, or somehow related to the toilets. disrespectful. He even pulled two of them by their ties, comparing them between laughs.

You can also read about the case of an outstanding 30-year-old theologian. Despite the seriousness of his profession, little by little he began to show unusual behavior for him. didn’t stop doing jokesHe seemed addicted meaningless puns D he laughed like crazy at his own jokes. When performing a computed tomography of the brain, it was found that the right fronto-parietal region was affected, in connection with which he was diagnosed with: Witzelsucht.

And the same diagnosis was made to a 59-year-old man who, after recovering from hemorrhage in the brain started to have hypersexual behavior. Young women were often hugged in a completely inappropriate way, accompanying these gestures with unpleasant jokes. His wife’s situation was intolerable, not only because of this, but also because he woke her up in the middle of the night to tell the bad jokes that came into his head between laughs.

In an article published about him in BBC Some of the jokes he talked about in the interview were shown. For example: “How to cure hunger? Stay away from the buffet.” Apparently there were many more of them, but they did not dare to reproduce them because of their sexual content.

The patient did not realize the inappropriateness of his jokes. Fortunately, he was able to find out about it and at least continued write jokes in a notebook instead of letting them go right and left. It was an advance, but logically not an ideal solution.

Can it be treated?

In some cases operate on the tumor might be the solution. But involvement of the brain is not always associated with a tumor and intervention is not always possible.

In terms of medications, some improvements have been noted with venlafaxine, a drug that acts as reuptake of serotonin and norepinephrine. Jokes and bad jokes have not completely subsided, but have become almost invisible, which allows patients to lead a normal life. Because yes, when humor gets out of control, it can also negatively affect a person’s life. This is another reason for those who have been telling bad jokes all their lives not to worry about their health. In your case, some attitudes of distrust and compassion will be the most negative they bring.