Reading a novel exercises ‘muscles’ in the brain, researchers find

We all know that reading a novel can transport you, delight you and intrigue you while you’re reading it. Now, thanks research by scientists at Emory University, we know that immersing yourself in a novel causes measurable physical changes in the brain that can be detected up to five days after the reader closes the book.

The Emory researchers, in a paper for the journal Brain Connectivity, compared the effect to “muscle memory.�

“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,� neuroscientist Gregory Berns said, according to a report in the journal Science Codex. “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.�

Twenty-one undergraduate students took part in the study. All read the same book, the 2003 thriller “Pompeii� by Robert Harris. The scientists said they deliberately chose a plot-driven book.

“The story follows a protagonist who is outside the city of Pompeii and notices steam and strange things happening around the volcano,� Berns said. He tries to return the doomed city to save the woman he loves. “It depicts true events in a fictional and dramatic way. It was important to us that the book had a strong narrative line.�

For two and a half weeks, the students read 30-page sections of the novel at night and had their brains scanned the following morning -- after taking a test to make sure they had done the reading. The scans continued for several days after they’d finished the novel.

The results showed “heightened connectivity� in the left temporal cortex, an area of the brain associated with receptivity for language, and also in the central sulcus, the brain’s primary sensory motor region.

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