Yes, we need a neuroscience of play

Abstract

Ethnology, the cross-cultural comparative approach of cultural anthropology, has long recognized that people and animals play at all stages of their lives; that human play is culturally universal; that play is therapeutic; and that play very likely is rooted in the evolutionary neurobiology of our species. The advisability of a neuroscience approach was implied in 1938 by Johann Huizinga in his classic work, Homo Ludens, who first suggested that we are dealing with a separate state of consciousness. The long delay in the application of neuroscience to the study of play is at least partly due to ignorance of the pioneering work of TAASP in the 1970s, the failure of scholars to agree on a definition, and the preoccupation with functionalist approaches by all disciplines. Today neuroscience is burgeoning, exploring many aspects of human emotion and behavior, and many of the early suggestions of anthropology are being verified.