Real art in museums stimulates brain much more than reprints, study finds

Volunteers were attached to a brain scanner and eye-tracking equipment and asked to look at five paintings in the museum, plus posters of them in the museum shop. Photograph: Mauritshuis

It was a truth known to Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell back in 1968, but now scientists have caught up with them: there really ain’t nothing like the real thing.

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.