Researchers investigate why we humans cannot resist the urge to yawn. Scientists at Nottingham University say thats because you cannot. "We suggest that these findings may be particularly important in understanding further the association between motor excitability and the occurrence of echophenomena in a wide range of clinical conditions that have been linked to increased cortical excitability and/or decreased physiological inhibition such as epilepsy, dementia, autism, and Tourette syndrome," Jackson told the Daily Mail.People who suffer from unconsciously copying other peoples behaviour are known as echophenomena.Yawning they say is like needing to cough. When participants were asked to record the urge to yawn, those asked to hold it wanted to do it even more.
The team made the discovery while studying the copycat effect of the yawn by showing 36 people clips of it.Stephen Jackson, professor of cognitive neuroscience at Nottingham University is the studys team leader. "When people try not to yawn there is a tension in the brain, in the primary motor cortex which controls yawning, which wants to cause this action," Jackson told the Daily Mail. It UL1007 is something you know you have to do even if you dont want to at that time."The studys findings could help treat dementia patients whose symptoms include finding it hard to resist "mimicking others yawning and coughing", the report revealed. Adding, "This may be why it cannot be stopped and people feel a greater urge to do it.You’re at a work meeting or at a lecture and it comes on. You try desperately to fight it and probably dont succeed.