REASONS 'YAWNING' IS CONTAGIOUS ( READ FACT)

 scientists say understanding contagious yawning could
also help understand those disorders too.
Contagious yawning is a common form of echophenomena -
the automatic imitation of someone else's words or actions.
Echophenomena is also seen in Tourette's, as well as in other
conditions, including epilepsy and autism.
To test what's happening in the brain during the phenomenon,
scientists monitored 36 volunteers while they watched others
yawning.
'Excitability'
In the study, published in the journal Current Biology, some
were told it was fine to yawn while others were told to stifle
the urge.
The urge to yawn was down to how each person's primary
motor cortex worked - its "excitability".
And, using external transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS), it
was also possible to increase "excitability" in the motor cortex
and therefore people's propensity for contagious yawns.

Georgina Jackson, professor of cognitive neuropsychology
who worked on the study, said the finding could have wider
uses: "In Tourette's, if we could reduce the excitability we
might reduce the tics, and that's what we are working on."
Prof Stephen Jackson, who also worked on the research,
added: "If we can understand how alterations in cortical
excitability give rise to neural disorders we can potentially
reverse them.
"We are looking for potential non-drug, personalised
treatments, using TMS that might be effective in modulating
imbalances in the brain networks."
Dr Andrew Gallup, a psychologist at SUNY Polytechnic
Institute, who has carried out research into the connection
between empathy and yawning, said using TMS was a "novel
approach" to the study of contagious yawning.
He added: "We still know relatively little about why we yawn.
Various studies have proposed links between contagious
yawning and empathy, yet the research supporting this
connection is mixed and inconsistent.
"The current findings provide further evidence that yawn
contagion may be unrelated to empathic processing."