English playwright Jospeh Addison once famously said, "Reading is to the mind what exercise is to the body."

This holds true as a latest research suggests that reading novels can lead to measurable changes in the brain, albeit for a few days.

Gregory Berns, lead author and the director of Emory's Center for Neuropolicy, examined effects of reading a novel that linger in the brain.

"Stories shape our lives and in some cases help define a person," explained Berns in a press release. "We want to understand how stories get into your brain, and what they do to it." 

For the study, Berns and the research team tested 21 Emory undergraduates for 19 consecutive days.

The participants were told to read the novel "Pompeii," a 2003 Robert Harris thriller based on the real-life eruption of Mount Vesuvius in ancient Italy. The researchers said they zeroed in on the book as it has a gripping plot. "It depicts true events in a fictional and dramatic way," Berns said. "It was important to us that the book had a strong narrative line."

For the first five mornings a fMRI scan of the readers was done in the resting state. Then they were given nine sections of the novel, about 30 pages each, over a nine-day period.

The participants were told to read the assigned section in the evening, and come next morning. These participants were also quizzed to understand they actually read the given section. After this the participants underwent an fMRI scan of their brain in a non-reading, resting state.

Upon the completion of all the nine sections of the novel, the participants returned for five more mornings and underwent additional scans in a resting state.

The researchers found that the left temporal cortex of the brain, associated with receptivity for language, had increased connectivity.

"Even though the participants were not actually reading the novel while they were in the scanner, they retained this heightened connectivity," Berns said, reported Futurity. "We call that a 'shadow activity,' almost like a muscle memory."

The study is published in the journal Brain Connectivity.