Reading Changes the Brain

Researchers at Emory University have detected changes in the brain that linger for a few days after reading a novel. Their findings were published by the journal Brain Connectivity.

“Stories shape our lives and in some cases help define a person,” says neuroscientist Gregory Berns, lead author of the study and the director of Emory’s Center for Neuropolicy. “We want to understand how stories get into your brain, and what they do to it.”

The Emory study focused on the lingering neural effects of reading a narrative. Twenty-one Emory undergraduates participated in the experiment, which was conducted over 19 consecutive days.

All of the study subjects read the novel, “Pompeii,” based on the real-life eruption of Mount Vesuvius in ancient Italy. Berns explains that the narrative "follows a [fictional] protagonist, who is outside the city of Pompeii and notices steam and strange things happening around the volcano." While the protagonist tries to save the woman he loves back in Pompeii, the volcano continues to erupt, and meanwhile others in the city do not recognize the signs, Berns says.

The researchers chose the book due to its level of intensity. “It depicts true events in a fictional and dramatic way,” Berns says. “It was important to us that the book had a strong narrative.”

For 19 consecutive days, the study participants were analyzed by the researchers. During the first 5 days, the researchers performed base-line magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans on the students' brains while they were in a resting state.

Then, over the course of 9 days, the students read specific portions of the novel until they completed it. Instructed to read each assigned part in the evening, the students came back to the researchers in the morning.

The students had to take a quiz in order to prove they had completed the assigned reading, after which, they again underwent an MRI scan during a non-reading, resting state.

After completion of the novel, the students then returned for 5 additional days, during which they again underwent scans while in a resting state.

The results demonstrated heightened connectivity in the left temporal cortex, an area of the brain linked with receptivity for language, on the mornings following the reading assignments. “Even though the participants were not actually reading the novel while they were in the scanner, they retained this heightened connectivity,” Berns says.

Heightened connectivity was also seen in the central sulcus of the brain, the primary sensory motor region of the brain. “The neural changes that we found associated with physical sensation and movement systems suggest that reading a novel can transport you into the body of the protagonist,” Berns says. “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 goes on to explain how the neural changes were not just immediate reactions, since they persisted the morning after the readings, and for the five days after the participants completed the novel.

“It remains an open question how long these neural changes might last,” Berns says. “But the fact that we’re detecting them over a few days for a randomly assigned novel suggests that your favorite novels could certainly have a bigger and longer-lasting effect on the biology of your brain.

We all know how reading a great novel can inspire learning. Thanks to the research at Emory University we are beginning to uncover the ways in which reading actually  changes and stimulates the brain.

"To learn to read is to light a fire; every syllable that is spelled out is a spark." — Victor Hugo

Sources:

BRAIN CONNECTIVITY Volume 3, Number 6, 2013

Esciencecommons.blogspot.com

Medicalnewstoday.com