Listen to PMC Full-Text Papers
Turn any PubMed Central full-text article into audio. Open it in Chrome, click CastReader, and listen through the whole paper with paragraph highlighting.
Host microbiota crosstalk in immune development and metabolic health
Gut microbiota plays a critical role in host metabolism, immune development, and neurological function. Disruptions in microbial composition, known as dysbiosis, have been linked to inflammatory bowel disease, obesity, and even neurodegenerative disorders. Understanding these interactions opens new therapeutic avenues that bypass traditional drug targets.
Full-text PMC articles — abstract + body read through, references and PDF-sidebar skipped
Why Listen to PMC with CastReader?
NIH's open-access archive is massive. Don't lose hours to screen fatigue.
Full Text
Reads Entire PMC Articles
Abstract, introduction, methods, results, discussion — read in the order the authors wrote them. Not just the abstract; the whole paper, end to end.
Clean Audio
No Citations in Your Ears
Inline citations like [1][2][3] and the References list get stripped. Funding, Acknowledgements, Author Contributions — all skipped. You hear the argument, not the scaffolding.
Follow Along
Paragraph Highlighting + Click to Jump
Each paragraph highlights as it's read. Need to replay the methods or skip ahead to Results? Click the paragraph. Ears and eyes stay locked together.
100% Free
Run a Full Reading List
Completely free. No signup, no subscription, no page quota. Queue up 20 papers for tonight.
Frequently Asked Questions
Everything about listening to PubMed Central with CastReader
How do I listen to a PMC article?
Open the article's full-text page on pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov in Chrome (URL looks like pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMCxxxxxxx/). Click the CastReader icon and it starts reading. First load takes ~2 seconds while the React SPA hydrates.
What's the difference between /listen-to-pmc and /listen-to-pubmed?
PubMed (/listen-to-pubmed) is NIH's search index — you mostly see abstracts and citations. PMC (/listen-to-pmc) is the full-text archive — you get the complete paper. If a PubMed result has a 'Free full text' link, it usually points to PMC, and that's where CastReader reads the whole article.
Does it handle figures, tables, and supplementary materials?
Figure captions and table captions are read inline. Figure images, table data, and supplementary PDFs are skipped. Jump back to the page if you need to inspect them visually.
What about non-English articles?
PMC occasionally hosts non-English full text. CastReader auto-detects the language and picks a matching AI voice from 40+ supported languages.
Is it free? Any limits?
Completely free with no limits. No account needed. CastReader is a free browser extension.
Does it work on Europe PMC too?
Yes — see /listen-to-europepmc. Europe PMC is the European mirror; it uses the same JATS structure and our extractor handles both.
Can I adjust reading speed?
Yes. Speed up for familiar methodology, slow down for dense results. 0.5x through 3x supported.
Is my reading data private?
Text is sent to our voice API for TTS synthesis. We don't track which articles you read and don't store text beyond the request lifecycle.
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Start Listening to Biomedical Papers
Completely free. No signup. No limits. Install CastReader and open any PMC article.