Literature is Good for Your Brain

[cecilia]

"....a Stanford researcher has found that critical, literary reading and leisure reading provide different kinds of neurological workouts, both of which constitute “truly valuable exercise of people's brains."

The fMRI machine allows the researchers to see blood flowing through the brain, and what they found was intriguing: when we read, blood flows to regions of the brain beyond the ones responsible for executive functions. Rather, it flows to areas associated with close concentration. That may not seem so odd--reading requires concentration--but they also found that critical, close reading requires a certain kind of complex cognitive function that we don’t usually employ.