READING BRAINS NOW

New studies show that reading shapes the brain. And new technology can “read” the words that your brain sees when you read. Beautiful results and implications.

READING SHAPES THE BRAIN

 

We’ve long had anecdotal evidence that reading improves your thinking. But what you read also matters. According to a new study conducted by a group of neuroscientists at Emory University, reading fiction improves brain connectivity and function.

 

The study titled, “Short and Long Term Effects of a Novel on Connectivity in the Brain," was recently published in the journal Brain Connectivity.

 

When we read, we put ourselves in the “shoes” of the characters in the story. And, with fictional characters, we tend to be more imaginative. Fiction enhances our creative thinking, in particular. It exercises our creative “muscles” to keep us in good creative shape, ready to deliver new ideas and novel approaches to life.

Fiction titles are outselling nonfiction books by 3 to 1 margin. That’s good news because in addition to benefitting our creativity, fiction also helps us to destress more, allowing us to escape our pressures and fantasize.

 

A 2012 “Pew Internet and American Life Project” survey found that people who like to read fiction are driven by personal enrichment. They find novels stimulating. And they find joy in unplugging periodically.

The changes in the brain when subjects were reading fiction where recorded in the left temporal cortex -- the same area of the brain associated with language development and sensorimotor functions. Neurons in this region act to enable visualization and sensation.

How do stories get into our brains? Neurobiological research has just begun to identify the brain networks that are active when processing stories.

 

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

 

The Emory researchers took fMRI scans of the brains of 21 undergraduate students at rest. Then they were asked to read sections of the 2003 thriller novel “Pompeii,” by Robert Harris, over the course of 9 nights. The students' brains were scanned each following morning and then again daily for five days after they had finished the book.

The scans showed that there was heightened connectivity in the students’ brains each morning after reading.

 

The scans revealed heightened connectivity within the students' brains on the mornings following the reading assignments. And effects were lasting. Stories stay with us.  The brain is reconfigured.

 

Professor Berns said: ‘It remains an open question how long these neural changes might last.’

‘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.’

READING WHAT YOUR BRAIN READS

 

A computer can now read letters directly from your brain. Researchers from Radboud University Nijimegen analyzed MRI images of brains by using a new mathematical model, and were able to reconstruct thoughts with a significant degree of accuracy, as published in the journal Neuroimage.

Functional MRI scanners are able to determine which areas of the brain are active while a subject performs a specific task. But new findings have gone a step further: they have used data from the scanner to determine what a test subject is looking at.

The researchers ‘taught’ a computer model how tiny bits of data, known as voxels, from the brain scans, respond to individual pixels. This combined information pixels/voxels, enabled researchers to reconstruct images viewed by the subjects. They used handwritten letters as stimuli.

 

Researchers are currently linking images of letters to 1200 voxels in the brain. They hope, with a more powerful scanner, that they can soon link images of faces to 15,000 voxels.’

Read more about Beautiful Reads, as it relates to Arts/Design, Nature/Science, Food/Drink, Place/Time, Mind/Body, and Soul/Impact including The Best of Most Beautiful Reads, 10 Beautiful Reads: Apps and Spaces, 10 Beautifully Delicious Reads Now, The Best of Most Beautiful Reads, and 10 Beautiful Places to Read, Read, Read.

 

And check out our list of the most Beautiful Books to give here.

 

Enter this week’s BN Creative Competition. Our theme this week is Beautiful Reads. Deadline is 03.30.14.

 

PHOTO CREDITS

 

1. Photo: Courtesy of Voices from Russia. Reading a book.

2. Photo: Courtesy of Intech. Mapping the core of the cerebral cortex.

3. Image: Courtesy of Universidad Autónoma de Occidente.  Flying pages.

4. Image: Courtesy of the Human Connectome Project. Connectivity gradients and peaks under fMRI.

5. Image: Courtesy of Pablo Blinder and Prof. Eshel Ben-Jacob of Tel Aviv University. Neural networks interspersed in the brain’s glial network.

6. Image: Courtesy of Peter Penzes lab. Brain cells.

7. Photo: Courtesy of Radboud University Nijmegen. Letters read from the brain.

8. Photo: Courtesy of M. F. Glasser and S. M. Smith for the WU-Minn HCP consortium. MRI of the resting brain.

9. Photo: Courtesy of Nature Communications. Images suggesting that individual letters are recognized before being processed together as words.

10. Photo: Courtesy of School Improvement. Reading outside.