The famous painting, held in the Mauristhuis museum in The Hague, was banned from travel in 2014

The study also found that when volunteers looked at five works of art in the Hague’s Mauritshuis museum, their brains responded ten times more positively than when they viewed reproductions

Masterpiece was returned to the Mauritshuis in March

Mauritshuis currently has 170 works on display as part of its “My Girl with a Pearl” initiative while Vermeer’s masterpiece is on loan