Many of the actions that are made daily have an obvious function: eating, talking, watching. But is not the case of yawning.
The tense jaw opens the mouth and inspires a lot of air followed by a rapid exhalation leaves a great feeling of wellbeing. Just reading it feel like yawning, is one of the most contagious behavior. Charles Darwin expressed in his notes” All animals are built with the same structure. Yawning appears in virtually all vertebrates, fatigue or boredom digestion. The survival of yawning, unchanged for millions of years indicates that you must have a fundamental evolutionary function. ” Will it help to cool the brain? Why raise attention? Or rather is related to sexual arousal? So far have found no definitive answers.
Patients Parkinson and autism just experience it. Why?
The time to yawn triggered a whirlwind of biochemical signals in the brain. This process often involving a neuronal substance such as acetylcholine, serotonin or dopamine, this in particular seems to play an important role. This substance is scarce in the brains of Parkinson patients, which present an almost complete disappearance of yawning. Autistic children also become infected with this momentum. The total disappearance of the phenomenon in individuals with low empathy, would link it with the ability to connect with others.
When yawning
What leads to yawn? Many of the situations that lead to yawn related to boredom, fatigue or sleep after a meal, upon waking, the motion sickness, and many others, but none of these scenarios seem to justify the complexity of the brain and the ancient residence of yawning. There are other circumstances totally contrary very often also lead to yawn: the athletes before competitions, the paratroopers in the moments before the break, when students are facing a test or even musicians as they prepare for a concert. Also predators usually do before you go hunting and many species yawn precedes mating. It appears that the neural machinery that triggers the yawn is triggered before an important event.
Is it true that yawning oxygenates the brain?
A scientist finds out. In the eighties are denied the most widespread theory which said that yawning was a needed boost to oxygenate the brain. Ronald Baenninger, Philadelphia, gave a group of volunteers, a laptop, asking them to press a specific key whenever yawn followed for a couple of weeks. After collecting all data, found that the most frequently recorded about 15 minutes before any activity that required special attention or delivery.
Yawning group
Any evolutionary advantage? Yawning is contagious, there’s no doubt. Activated the superior temporal sulcus of the brain in the same structure that works in the perception of eyes and mouth. Thus, this collective drive could have been consolidated over the development as a tool to spread the alertness group. It is unknown if it is, but what nobody can deny is the unstoppable force that pushes us to yawn.