LiveScience Interviews NYITCOM Cardiologist

Cardiologist Todd Cohen, M.D., professor, chief of cardiology, and director of medical device innovation at NYITCOM, was interviewed for the LiveScience article, “Can You Die from Laughter?” As Cohen discusses, in rare cases, an especially hearty chuckle can cause something called laughter-induced syncope, a condition that causes a person’s blood pressure to drop rapidly during an exaggerated laugh. This triggers a heightened response from the autonomic nervous system — the network of nerves that regulates involuntary physiological processes — leading to a temporary dip in the amount of blood that flows to the brain, which can result in a loss of consciousness.

“When you laugh, you’re moving your chest up and down, and it changes the pressure in the thoracic cavity [chest] and it can affect what’s called the vagus nerve,” which carries signals between the brain and most of the internal organs, Cohen told LiveScience. “It can cause you to become lightheaded, [or] even — very, very, very rarely — pass out, especially when it’s very exaggerated.”