Murakami's running 'void' and the neuroscience of transient hypofrontality
_akpiper · x · 2026-10-14
Annie Murphy Paul's Science of Creativity newsletter uses Haruki Murakami's line — "I run in order to acquire a void" — to introduce neuroscientist Arne Dietrich's concept of transient hypofrontality: intense exercise forces the brain to reallocate metabolic resources, temporarily taking the judging, inhibiting frontal areas offline. The resharing author adds that reading fiction similarly shuts down information processing and activates the default mode network, tightly coupling fiction reading with mind-wandering and creative cognition.
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