More to reading than meets the eye …

There’s so much about winter I love. Not only do I get to wear my beloved selection of overcoats but I enjoy taking time to sit by the open fire and read books— It’s no secret that I love books. Reading them and writing them. I’m probably more the traditional paper-and-ink book person though E-books are good too.

Is there anything more fun than finding a book you’ve been longing to buy that could round off a collection or maybe add something special to build your personal library.

For the past several weeks I been recuperating after catching a terrible cold. At first I couldn’t find the energy to do anything but eventually, I found my way back to the computer to continue the final check through of my second Danika and Yatimah book.

But in between all this I found the wonderful author Rosamunde Pilcher and she’s been wonderful in assisting me through this very annoying cough and cold. I’m now addicted to her books. I’m also wondering why I’ve never read her books before? I adored The Shell Seekers, Coming Home, Winter Solstice and September. I’ve also been collecting many others. Her characters have virtually sunk into my pores. They fill my imagination and have me thinking about the human condition. The un-perfect combined with wisdom and humour, the sweet and sour of life.

Is there anything better than turning to the first chapter of an anticipated story, and almost smelling an adventure. But did you know that reading a novel can actually improve the brain. I read about this earlier this year in a column by Lee Dye. How nice to think that something you LOVE is actually good for you. Here is a slightly abridged version click the link to read more.

HOW READING A NOVEL CAN IMPROVE THE BRAIN
Column by LEE DYE – http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/reading-improve-brain/story?id=21501657

Lee Dye wrote:
Scientists are using some of their most sophisticated tools to peer inside the human brain to see what happens when we engage in the process of reading, and they are finding a number of surprises:

— Reading is a very complex task that requires several different regions of the brain to work together.

— But surprisingly, we don’t use the same neural circuits to read as we grow from infants to adults. So our brains are constantly changing throughout our lives.

— It appears possible that reading can improve the “connectivity” between the various brain circuits that are essential to understanding the written word.

— And there is recent evidence that simply reading a good novel can keep that enhanced “connectivity” working for days, and possibly longer, after we have finished the book.

One of the main tools used to test this is functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI,) a scanner that allows them to see what is going on in the brains of human subjects without having to cut their skulls open.

Blood rushes to the parts of the brain that are active, thus telling researchers which areas are responsible for different functions, like dreaming, and reading.

Neuroscientists at Emory University in Atlanta have determined that just reading a gripping novel makes changes in the way the brain connects with different circuits, and most importantly, those changes last for at least five days. They may not be permanent, but that at least suggests that the rewards from reading last longer than the act itself.

Emory’s Gregory Berns and his colleagues put 21 students (12 females and nine males) through an fMRI for about 30 minutes a day for 19 days to collect their data. During the experiment the participants read the 2003 novel, “Pompeii,” by Robert Harris, based on the destruction of that city by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius.

The students were scanned for five days before reading the book, and five days after they had finished. During the intermittent nine days they read one chapter each evening before the scanning the following morning. The scanner revealed a sharp spike in two neural networks after the first chapter, and that continued throughout the rest of the experiment, including the five days after the reading was over.

Apparently the human brain is never really “at rest.” It remains an active processor, even in our sleep.The fact that the participants’ neural circuits were active while they were reading is not surprising, because some circuits light up whenever we do anything. But the effect lasted beyond the book, and that has intrigued other scientists who must now duplicate, and expand, the findings for them to remain viable.
There is some support for the Emory scientists from unrelated research projects. Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University, found that children who had trouble reading gained a major benefit during a six-month effort to raise their reading skills. The children improved their ability to read, but they also increased the neural connectivity within a key network. That research showed that behavioural training — reading, in this case — can actually “enhance brain function,” Thomas R. Insel, director of the National Institute of Mental Health, which supported the work, said in announcing the findings in 2009.

Interestingly, those improved circuits may not be the same circuits the children will use as they grow older. And that reinforces something our mothers tried to teach us: Start early. Read often. Give your brain a little help.