Neuroscience of religion

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
"God spot" redirects here. For the stage lighting, see Godspot.
Not to be confused with neuroethology.

The neuroscience of religion, also known as neurotheology and as spiritual neuroscience,

neural phenomena with subjective experiences of spirituality and hypotheses to explain these phenomena. This contrasts with the psychology of religion
which studies mental, rather than neural states.

Proponents of the

subjective experiences traditionally categorized as spiritual or religious.[3] The field has formed the basis of several popular science books.[4][5][6]

Introduction

"Neurotheology" is a neologism that describes the scientific study of the neural correlates of religious or spiritual beliefs, experiences and practices. Other researchers prefer to use terms like "spiritual neuroscience" or "neuroscience of religion". Researchers in the field attempt to explain the neurological basis for religious experiences, such as:[7]

Terminology

Aldous Huxley used the term neurotheology for the first time in the utopian novel Island.[citation needed] The discipline studies the cognitive neuroscience of religious experience and spirituality. The term is also sometimes used in a less scientific context or a philosophical context. Some of these uses, according to the mainstream scientific community, qualify as pseudoscience. Huxley used it mainly in a philosophical context.[citation needed]

Theoretical work

In an attempt to focus and clarify what was a growing interest in this field, in 1994 educator and businessman Laurence O. McKinney published the first book on the subject, titled "Neurotheology: Virtual Religion in the 21st Century", written for a popular audience but also promoted in the theological journal Zygon.

Dalai Lama and sparked a new interest in the field. [citation needed
]

What Andrew B. Newberg and others "discovered is that intensely focused spiritual contemplation triggers an alteration in the activity of the brain that leads one to perceive transcendent religious experiences as solid, tangible reality. In other words, the sensation that Buddhists call oneness with the universe."[10] The orientation area requires sensory input to do its calculus. "If you block sensory inputs to this region, as you do during the intense concentration of meditation, you prevent the brain from forming the distinction between self and not-self," says Newberg. With no information from the senses arriving, the left orientation area cannot find any boundary between the self and the world. As a result, the brain seems to have no choice but "to perceive the self as endless and intimately interwoven with everyone and everything." "The right orientation area, equally bereft of sensory data, defaults to a feeling of infinite space. The meditators feel that they have touched infinity."[11]

The radical Catholic theologian Eugen Drewermann developed a two-volume critique of traditional conceptions of God and the soul and a reinterpretation of religion (Modern Neurology and the Question of God) based on current neuroscientific research.[12]

However, it has also been argued "that neurotheology should be conceived and practiced within a theological framework."[13]

Experimental work

In 1969, British biologist Alister Hardy founded a Religious Experience Research Centre at Oxford after retiring from his post as Linacre Professor of Zoology. Citing William James's The Varieties of Religious Experience (1902), he set out to collect first-hand accounts of numinous experiences. He was awarded the Templeton Prize before his death in 1985. His successor David Hay suggested in God's Biologist: A Life of Alister Hardy (2011) that the RERC later dispersed as investigators turned to newer techniques of scientific investigation.

Magnetic stimulation studies

Main article: God helmet

During the 1980s

criticised,[2][16]
[17][18] though some researchers[19] have published a replication of one God Helmet experiment.[20]

Granqvist et al. claimed that Persinger's work was not

replicate Persinger's experiments double-blinded, and concluded that the presence or absence of the magnetic field had no relationship with any religious or spiritual experience reported by the participants, but was predicted entirely by their suggestibility and personality traits. Following the publication of this study, Persinger et al. dispute this.[21] One published attempt to create a "haunted room" using environmental "complex" electromagnetic fields based on Persinger's theoretical and experimental work did not produce the sensation of a "sensed presence" and found that reports of unusual experiences were uncorrelated with the presence or absence of these fields. As in the study by Granqvist et al., reports of unusual experiences were instead predicted by the personality characteristics and suggestibility of participants.[22] One experiment with a commercial version of the God helmet found no difference in response to graphic images whether the device was on or off.[23][24]

Neuropsychology and neuroimaging

The first researcher to note and catalog the abnormal experiences associated with

pedantism, often collectively ascribed to a condition known as Geschwind syndrome
.

peer-reviewed
scientific article.

Research by

University of Montreal, using fMRI on Carmelite nuns, has purported to show that religious and spiritual experiences include several brain regions and not a single 'God spot'. As Beauregard has said, "There is no God spot in the brain. Spiritual experiences are complex, like intense experiences with other human beings."[27] The neuroimaging was conducted when the nuns were asked to recall past mystical states, not while actually undergoing them; "subjects were asked to remember and relive (eyes closed) the most intense mystical experience ever felt in their lives as a member of the Carmelite Order."[28]
A 2011 study by researchers at the
Duke University Medical Center found hippocampal atrophy is associated with older adults who report life-changing religious experiences, as well as those who are "born-again Protestants, Catholics, and those with no religious affiliation".[29]

A 2016 study using fMRI found "a recognizable feeling central to ... (

Mormon)... devotional practice was reproducibly associated with activation in nucleus accumbens, ventromedial prefrontal cortex, and frontal attentional regions. Nucleus accumbens activation preceded peak spiritual feelings by 1–3 s and was replicated in four separate tasks. ... The association of abstract ideas and brain reward circuitry may interact with frontal attentional and emotive salience processing, suggesting a mechanism whereby doctrinal concepts may come to be intrinsically rewarding and motivate behavior in religious individuals."[30]

Psychopharmacology

Some scientists working in the field hypothesize that the basis of

hypothesis has found laboratory validation with respect to psilocybin.[34][35]

See also

References

  1. doi:10.1038/scientificamericanmind1007-38
    .
  2. ^ a b Aaen-Stockdale, Craig (2012). "Neuroscience for the Soul". The Psychologist. 25 (7): 520–523. Archived from the original on 28 September 2013. Retrieved 6 July 2012.
  3. ^ Gajilan, A. Chris (5 April 2007). "Are humans hard-wired for faith?". CNN.com. Archived from the original on 10 October 2017. Retrieved 9 April 2007.
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  10. ISBN 978-0-345-44034-1
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  11. Newsweek Media Group
    . Retrieved 15 May 2018.
  12. ISBN 978-3-491-21000-4
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  13. S2CID 144816268
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  14. S2CID 486935
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  15. S2CID 44618872
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  16. S2CID 24800593
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  17. ^ Khamsi, Roxanne (9 December 2004). "Electrical brainstorms busted as source of ghosts". BioEd Online. Archived from the original on 27 June 2006.
  18. S2CID 54348640
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  19. ^ Tinoca, Carlos A; Ortiz, João PL (2014). "Magnetic Stimulation of the Temporal Cortex: A Partial "God Helmet" Replication Study". Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research. 5 (3): 234–257.
  20. PMID 8407157
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  21. S2CID 41145064
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  22. S2CID 3944854
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  23. S2CID 42872159
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  24. ^ Aaen-Stockdale, Craig (2012). "Neuroscience for the Soul". The Psychologist. 25 (7): 520–523. Archived from the original on 28 September 2013. Retrieved 6 July 2012. Murphy claims his devices are able to modulate emotional states in addition to enhancing meditation and generating altered states. In flat contradiction of this claim, Gendle & McGrath (2012) found no significant difference in emotional state whether the device was on or off.
  25. PMID 1200777
    .
  26. ISBN 978-0688152475
    .
  27. ^ Harper Collins Publishers Author Interview with mario Beauregard, HarperCollins.com, archived from the original on 10 January 2019, retrieved 21 August 2011
  28. S2CID 13563460
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  29. PMID 21479219
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  30. PMID 27834117
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  31. ISBN 978-0-89281-927-0
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  32. ISBN 978-1-57230-922-7
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  33. ^ Skatssoon, Judy (12 July 2006). "Magic mushrooms hit the God spot". ABC Science Online. Retrieved 13 July 2006.
  34. PMID 18593735
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  35. S2CID 7845214
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Further reading

External links
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