The power of poetry uncovered

2017/05/15 Galarraga Aiestaran, Ana - Elhuyar Zientzia Iturria: Elhuyar aldizkaria

• Anatomia/Fisiologia

Numerous studies have shown that music directly influences the brain and organism. Besides being an emotional agent, it also generates physical response and, taking advantage of this capacity, it is also used in therapy.

Now, some neuroscientists at the Max Planck Institute have focused on another artistic expression: poetry. And they conclude that expressions with rhyme and rhythmic language, such as classical poems, traditional verses or children's poems, also produce a physical reaction in the listener.

They even suggest that this response is proper. In fact, they have remembered that parents from all over the world use a special poetic language with children. In addition, they stressed that poetry is the oldest literary genre and that before explaining writing, stories were transmitted in this way from one generation to another.

For all this, two experiments have been conducted to analyze the influence of poetry. In one of them, volunteers had to choose poems that thrilled them. Subsequently, the researchers measured a series of physical parameters during their hearing: heartbeat, skin changes, hair... The result was clear: they all had chills and were put on a chicken hamaiketako.

The researchers explained that the placement of the chicken's ass has social consequences, since it generates empathy and tightens the ties of the group members. In this sense, they have been compared with eggs, since like them, they help compacting the group and can be contaminants.

In the other experiment, in which 18 volunteers participated, brain activity was evaluated through representation through functional magnetic resonance while listening to the poems chosen by themselves.

In the most emotional moments, researchers have shown that the activity of many areas of the brain increases. One of these fields is nucleus accumbens, related to the prize system, rhythm processing and forecasting.

In addition, they have compared the activity of poetry with which music exercises on the brain and have seen that they do not activate the same fields. Researchers have recognized that they still do not know why they do not act in the same way, but anticipate that processing of the meaning of words may be different in both cases. And it is that music does not need the word to influence. However, poetry needs the word; simple melody is not capable of generating the response that the poem provokes. At the same time, mere text does not have the capacity of the rhymed word and rhythmic language. That is, poetry is so powerful because it combines words and melody.

Published in the newspaper Berria.