What a 6-Year-Old Couldn't Stop Doing Had Some Thinking She Was 'Devil-Possessed' -- but There Was Medical Explanation

A 6-year-old Bolivian girl couldn't stop laughing.

The girl was found to have a tumor on her temporal lobe. After it was removed, her uncontrolled laughing stopped. (Image credit: Shutterstock)

"She was considered spoiled, crazy, even devil-possessed,” Dr. Jose Liders Burgos Zuleta said in a statement.

The girl was diagnosed by some physicians as having behavior issues, but further research into what might being going on revealed there was a more pressing physical issue associated with the uncontrollable laughter.

Zuleta's team took images of the girl's brain and discovered she had a small tumor on her temporal lobe.

Prior to this discovery, cases of both frontal and temporal lobe epilepsy have been associated with fits of laughter, and it's also not the first time such bouts of laughter resulted from a tumor on the temporal lobe.

The girl's tumor was surgically removed and her strange behavior stopped, allowing her to develop normally from there forward.

Zuleta said he hopes that doctors use this case to consider the possible physical causes of some behavioral issues.

This case study was published by the oncology channel eCancer.

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Front page image via Shutterstock.