Effects of stress on drug-induced yawning: Constant vs. intermittent stress. PHYSIOL BEHAV 58(1) 181-184, 1995.--Experiment 1 tested whether chronic exposure to immobilization, foot shock or forced swimming would result in suppression of apomorphine-, pilocarpine-, and physostigmine-induced yawning. Immobilization caused suppression of yawning, whereas foot shock and swimming resulted in increa...

We review a growing body of medical and physiological evidence indicating that yawning may be a thermoregulatory mechanism, providing compensatory cooling when other provisions fail to operate favorably. Conditions such as multiple sclerosis, migraine headaches, epilepsy, stress and anxiety, and schizophrenia have all be linked to thermoregulatory dysfunction and are often associated with insta...

Most previous studies suggest diminished susceptibility to contagious yawning in children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). However, it could be driven by their atypical attention to the face. To test this hypothesis, childrenwithASD and typically developing (TD) children were shown yawning and control movies. To ensure participants’ attention to the face, an eye tracker controlled the onset...

The ontogenetic course of two cholinergically mediated central neuropharmacological effects, yawning and potentiation of head-shaking induced by D-amphetamine (5 mg/kg), was explored in developing rats. Physostigmine (0.1 mg/kg) and pilocarpine (4 mg/kg) evoke stereotyped yawning in neonatal rats, the effect declining in the middle of the second week of life. Both cholinomimetic drugs strongly ...

Citation: Gallup AC and Clark AB (2015) Commentary: Yawning, acute stressors, and arousal reduction in Nazca booby adults and nestlings. Liang et al. (2015) recently reported on the relationship between yawning and stress responses in a wild population of Nazca boobies (Sula granti) in the Galapagos. Their analysis covered two separate investigations: a human capture-restraint stressor applied ...

S ince the 19th century, cases of pathological yawning have occasionally been published in medical journals. In this issue of J Neurol Neurosurg Psychiatry, Singer et al present the first study to focus specifically on yawning during acute stroke affecting the middle cerebral artery territory (see page 1253). None of seven patients suffering from abnormal repetitive yawning had diencephalic les...

INTRODUCTION Severe motion sickness is easily identifiable with sufferers showing obvious behavioral signs, including emesis (vomiting). Mild motion sickness and sopite syndrome lack such clear and objective behavioral markers. We postulate that yawning may have the potential to be used in operational settings as such a marker. This study assesses the utility of yawning as a behavioral marker f...

BACKGROUND Although some research suggests that fetuses yawn, others disagree arguing that is it simple mouth opening. Furthermore there is no developmental account of fetal yawning compared with simple mouth opening. The aim of the present study was to establish in a repeated measures design the development of fetal yawning compared with simple mouth opening. METHODOLOGY/FINDINGS Video recor...

Contagious yawning has been reported for humans, dogs and several non-human primate species, and associated with empathy in humans and other primates. Still, the function, development and underlying mechanisms of contagious yawning remain unclear. Humans and dogs show a developmental increase in susceptibility to yawn contagion, with children showing an increase around the age of four, when als...

Two cases of brain stem stroke involving the upper pons and the ponto-mesencephalic junction presented with transient excessive pathological yawning, associated with gait ataxia and in one subject with upper limb and facial hemiparesis. A causal relation is hypothesised between the brain stem lesion and pathological yawning, possibly related to denervation hypersensitivity of a putative brain s...