Scientists have unraveled the biological meaning of yawning
Last reviewed: 23.04.2024
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Scientists Andrew Gallup and Omar Eldakar from Princeton University (USA) put forward a new theory of the sense of yawning, backed up by experimental data. The results of the work are published in the journal Frontiers in Evolutionary Neuroscience.
According to the researchers, the biological role of yawning lies in the thermoregulation of the brain, as evidenced by a more frequent yawning in winter than in summer. The mechanism of cooling the brain is to increase the circulation of blood in the head as a result of the operation of the jaw muscles and the influx of cold air from the environment.
In winter we tend to yawn more often than in the summer. As scientists believe, this indicates that yawning contributes to the thermoregulation of the brain.
The essence of the study was to estimate the frequency of yawning in 80 passers-by in different seasons - in summer and in winter. The climatic conditions were the following: the temperature in summer was slightly higher than body temperature with low humidity; The winter temperature was about 21˚C with high humidity.
The results showed that the season of the year does have an effect on the frequency of yawning. At a low temperature, a man yawns more often, regardless of factors such as humidity and time spent on sleep. In winter, almost 50% of participants yawned, and in the summer - only 25%. And, the longer the party spent outdoors in the summer, the more yawning was.
This study is the first one that explains the relationship between the time of year and the frequency of yawning of a person. And if this theory of the role of yawning in thermoregulation of the brain is correct, it can become an additional diagnostic criterion for a number of diseases, accompanied by a violation of blood circulation in the brain.
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