Scientists say great novels can change brain's biology

WITH A great book we feel like we enter another world and no wonder: Scientists say novels change our brains to let us experience what we're reading.

Great novels 'change brain's biology'

MOST of us have experienced how a great novel can make you feel like you’re seeing things through the eyes of its characters.

But this feeling may be far more real than you imagine with new research showing how the biology of a reader’s brain actually changes to allow them to experience the physical sensations they’re reading about.

The research, carried out by scientists at Emory University, found that a great novel can produce measurable changes in the brain that linger for at least five days after reading.

“We want to understand how stories get into your brain, and what they do to it,” said neuroscientist Gregory Berns, who lead the research.

Berns’ team had test subjects read Pompeii, a 2003 thriller by Robert Harris. After finishing the novel they were given MRI scans over five consecutive days.

Even though the subjects were no longer reading the MRI results showed heightened connectivity in the left temporal cortex, an area of the brain associated with language.

The team also discovered heightened connectivity in the brain’s central sulcus, the primary sensory motor region of the brain.

The researchers said that neurons of this region are associated with making representations of sensation for the body, a phenomenon known as ‘grounded cognition’. Because of this phenomenon just by thinking about running someone can activate the neurons associated with running.

“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 said.

“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.”