The Importance of Humor in Addiction

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In the book, Patrick tells a story of being visited by a vacuum repair person. He asks him if he can help his brother who is in and out of rehab. "It raised the question of what does it mean to laugh, to be sad, to, and you open early in the book"

While operating on a 16-year-old girl who suffered from severe seizures, neurosurgeon Itzhak Fried stumbled on the region of the brain that makes us laugh. To neuroscientist Patrick House, Fried's ability to produce laughter surgically raises deep and disconcerting questions about how the brain works. Join Fried, House, and EconTalk's Russ Roberts for a live broadcast from Jerusalem's Shalem College that is a sequel of sorts to House's earlier appearance on EconTalk. House and Fried discuss the mystery of consciousness and try to square the biological bases for emotions with the circle of our humanity.