You are viewing your 1 free article this month. Login to read more articles.
Reading a novel stimulates the brain for days, US researchers have found.
The study, conducted at Emory University, focused on the lingering effects of reading a narrative. Twenty-one Emory undergraduates took part in the experiment over 19 days, reading thriller Pompeii by Robert Harris (Arrow). The book was chosen for the experiment for its strong narrative and page-turning plot.
For the first five days, the participants’ brains were scanned in a resting state. Then they were given about 30 pages of the novel to read over nine evenings and the next morning they underwent a scan of their brain in a resting state. After completing all nine sections of the novel, the participants underwent scans in a resting state for five more mornings.
The results showed heightened connectivity in the left temporal cortex, associated with receptivity for language, on the mornings following the reading assignments. Heightened connectivity was also seen in the central sulcus of the brain, the primary sensory motor region of the brain associated with making representations of sensation for the body, whereby thinking about an activity can actually activate the neurons associated with the physical act.
The study was led by neuroscientist Gregory Berns, who is the director of Emory’s Center for Neuropolicy. Berns said: “Even though the participants were not actually reading the novel while they were in the scanner, they retained this heightened connectivity…almost like a muscle memory.”
He explained that the neural changes associated with physical sensation and movement systems “suggest that reading a novel can transport you into the body of the protagonist. We already knew that good stories can put you in someone else’s shoes in a figurative sense. Now we’re seeing that something may also be happening biologically.”
Berns acknowledged that there is still more information to be found, stating: “It remains an open question how long these neural changes might last”, but he added “the fact that we’re detecting them over a few days for a randomly assigned novel suggests that your favourite novels could certainly have a bigger and longer-lasting effect on the biology of your brain.”
_____