A close friend was an even-keeled, responsible man, endowed with a sunny outlook and a gentle, punny sense of humor. So when he started to make snide remarks at social gatherings several years ago, I secretly championed the delight he was taking in his newfound freedom from social constraints. After more than 50 years of exemplary adult behavior, he had earned the right to play court jester now and then. Or so I thought.
New research from University College London suggests that shifts in what a person finds funny can herald imminent changes in the brain. Published this month in the Journal of Alzheimer’s disease, the study found that an altered sense of humor can predate a diagnosis of dementia by as much as 10 years. A burgeoning penchant for slapstick—over a past preference for satire or absurdist humor, for example—characterized nearly everyone who eventually developed frontotemporal dementia. (Far less common than Alzheimer’s, this illness usually hits people in their 50s and 60s.) But a changed sense of comedy affected less than half the people later diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease.
mildlyirrational 