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+--- Thread: Small but growing field searches for neural correlates of religiosity & spirituality (/thread-10628.html)
Small but growing field searches for neural correlates of religiosity & spirituality - C C - Jul 14, 2021
https://www.the-scientist.com/news-opinion/religion-on-the-brain-68969
EXCERPT: . . . In June, Michael Ferguson and his team published a study in Biological Psychiatry showing that brain lesions that connect to the periaqueductal gray (PAG), an area deep in the brain involved in processes such as pain modulation, fear conditioning, and altruism, seem to be associated with religiosity and spirituality.
“The discovery that religiosity and spirituality may be related to a distinct circuit in the brain is fascinating,” Uffe Schjoedt, who studies the neuroscience of religion at Aarhus University, writes in an email to The Scientist. “Lesions studies represent a unique possibility for neuroscientists to examine how physical changes to the brain impact thought and behavior.”
Studies on religion and the brain, a field dubbed neurotheology or neurospirituality, are sparse. The research is “difficult to get funded, and also difficult to get published in high-level journals because it’s not considered legitimate,” says Myrna Weissman, an epidemiologist and psychiatrist at Columbia University.
There’s also a misconception that scientists are trying to disprove religious beliefs. Ferguson emphasizes that none of these studies will confirm or refute the validity of specific religious beliefs. Instead, the research is “helping us to understand how religion and spirituality interact with brain systems,” he says.
The nascent field so far is characterized by disparate findings that are rarely replicated and difficult to reconcile into a cohesive hypothesis. Last year, one group used MRI to measure anatomical differences among individuals at three different regions of the brain—including areas in the temporal lobe implicated in hyper-religiosity after epilepsy surgeries—that they thought might process religious experiences. After questioning 211 individuals about their religiosity and spirituality and scanning their brains, the researchers found no differences in gray matter volume between those who said they were religious and those who said they weren’t. That team did not specifically look at the periaqueductal gray.
The study didn’t show that religiosity isn’t reflected somewhere in the brain, just that it isn’t associated with these specific anatomic changes, argues Ferguson, adding that it underscored the need for more complex approaches that can identify disruptions in functioning that might not be associated with an anatomical difference.
Other inconsistencies also plague the literature... (MORE - details)