Animals With Bigger Brain Yawn Longer

Animals with bigger plans are supposed to yawn longer.

According to the latest study, the longer is takes a mammal to complete a yawn, the bigger brain it has. Even though yawn is a common habit among humans and animals, scientists do not understand so much this phenomenon. It is usually connected with sleepiness and boredom. However, it seems that its role is more important than that.

To understand better, think that yawning has similar effects on the brain as stretching does for muscles. It increases the blood flow in that area of the body and delivers glucose and oxygen to our brain and cells. This means that animals with bigger brains need to yawn longer because it is more difficult for them to get the blood to the whole brain.

Researchers from the State University of New York used data from 200 videos. They were timing the yawns of 24 species, including humans, when they discovered that the size of our brain and yawn have a connection. Among the animals, they tested there were also dogs, cats, opossums or foxes.

There was no surprise when they found out that humans and other primates have the longest yawns. We have more neurons and larger brain sizes than other animals. This makes us think more and does connections that helped us survive for millions of years.

Researchers also wanted to see if there is any connection between the size of the body and yawn, but it seems that there isn’t. For example, humans are smaller than horses, but our yawn is longer. There were not many studies regarding yawning, but this one proves that this common habit means more that just “I want to sleep”.

Scientists are still trying to understand why we yawn. Most of them think because we need to cool our brains. When we think, we use a lot of energy which makes the brain hotter. Yawning is supposed to protect us. There are others who see yawning as a social reflex. Humans could use yawns to communicate even if they do not want to.

The authors of the study would have liked to use more videos to make sure they are right. That is the reason why we are expecting more studies in the future. They want to find out how important is yawning for us and what connection is has to the brain.

Image source: Ourfunnyplanet.com

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Nancy Young

When I was younger I used to spend almost all of my free time playing computer games. My mom and dad would go mental over this. “You’re never going to do anything with your life if you are going to play games all day” they used to say. What was even more unusual was the fact that I played more games than most of the guys in my friend group. Looking back, I have to admit that I probably played a bit too much, but I also learned a lot of great things. When I turned 20 I decided that it was high-time to make some money of my own, but the only jobs I could get were that of waitress or cashier. How exciting. After several excruciating months of serving tables I had a great idea: since I love gaming so much, why don’t I write about it? That’s when I started doing small writing projects on Elance. Eventually, I got an offer for a part-time job. During that time I learned all about content marketing strategies and how search engines work. I started writing about various topics such as technology, health and lifestyle and discovered that I was actually good at it. On November 24, 2014, I became part of the ArgyllFreePress team.