Reading novels, fictional texts and essays serves as a means of imagining situations, scenarios and characters, through their pages we create mental images of faces, bodies, landscapes, spaces and distances, that’s where the effect of reading on the brain begins.
Reading, as an activity, is a perfect opportunity to disconnect and relax our internal dialogue, interrupting censorship, accusations or cycles of thought on topics that we cannot solve. All of this is capable of activating many areas of the brain that activate our senses.
- Neurologist Guillermo García Ribas argues that reading facilitates two aspects: language decoding and symbolic thinking.
Alex Huth is part of the team that drew the map of the semantic system of the brain. Surprisingly, he found that language is not limited to the left hemisphere, as previously believed. Language production belongs to this area, however, much of the understanding. language occurs in the right hemisphere.
“There is a link between the areas of interpretation of symbols (words) with other areas, such as the area of movement, which until now we did not know” -G. Ribas-
Neuroscientist Aidan J. Horner argues that the representation of mental imaging affects the cortical and subcortical neural system, as well as activating a network of reticular cells, which are neurons responsible for giving us a sense of orientation in the environment, in the entorrinal cortex. in other words, they make the brain understand its position in space.
They are activated by mental images created from reading the character description in an environment. It also happens when we imagine ourselves somewhere, and they do it the same way they would in the face of a visual or auditory stimulus.
These neurons show strong regulation of theta waves, are wide-ranging electrical impulses, characteristic related to the reorganization of the brain structure, are also low-frequency waves and some believe they facilitate access to unconscious content.
Theta waves are characteristic of phases 1 and 2 of sleep in adults, children spend their waking time in theta wave state during the first years of life, when this occurs during adult awakening, something similar to the state of consciousness achieved after a meditation. or hypnosis training occurs.
That is, part of the effect of reading on the brain would be to facilitate the state of consciousness that gives access to the contents of the unconscious, at the same time that there would be a reorganization of brain structures and neural networks.
Robert Harris of Emory University conducted MRI tests on a group of people during the days they spent reading a novel and the study published some surprising results.
The movements performed by the characters of the novel activated different areas of the brain in readers, the activated areas were the same as would have been activated if they had performed them themselves, in addition a significant reinforcement was found in neural connections. central groove This organ is linked to bodily sensations and empathy.
Robert Harris’ experiments showed collateral results: they discovered a neural mark that reading a novel left in the brain a few days after its completion; resonances were also made on the same participants a few days after the book was finished. increased connectivity during the reading period continued several days later, although they were no longer reading.
This was called a “shadow of activity. ” Your brand is maintained for at least five days after the novel is finished. In fact, this brand can be maintained longer when we really like the book.
Activity shadow? That reading provokes in our brains could explain the magic of books, the same magic that allows characters and stories to stay with us even after reaching the end of the story.
Have you already known this effect of reading on the brain?Be sure to enjoy all the benefits of this activity.