News - Original works of art stimulate the brain 10 times faster than their reprints, study finds

A neurological study in the Netherlands has revealed that real works of art in a museum stimulate the brain in a way that is 10 times stronger than looking at a poster, reports The Guardian. Commissioned by the Mauritshuis Museum in The Hague, home to Johannes Vermeer’s Girl with a Pearl Earring, the independent study used eye-tracking technology and MRI scans to record the brain activity of volunteers looking at genuine artworks and reproductions. The results of the research were published on the website of the museum. The volunteers, aged between 21 and 65, were attached to an electroencephalogram (EEG) brain scanner and eye-tracking equipment and asked to look at five paintings in the museum, plus posters of them in the museum shop. Researchers also looked at the effects of images of real works versus reproductions flashed on to volunteers’ goggles, inside a University of Amsterdam functional MRI scanning machine. The real artworks evoked a strong positive response in the precuneus, part of the brain involved with consciousness, self-reflection and personal memories, researchers said.