Neural correlates of religious experience

Authors: Azari, Nina P.; Nickel, Janpeter¹; Wunderlich, Gilbert; Niedeggen, Michael²; Hefter, Harald¹; Tellmann, Lutz³; Herzog, Hans³; Stoerig, Petra²; Birnbacher, Dieter⁴; Seitz, Rüdiger J.¹

Source: European Journal of Neuroscience, Volume 13, Number 8, April 2001 , pp. 1649-1652(4)

Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell

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Abstract:

The commonsense view of religious experience is that it is a preconceptual, immediate affective event. Work in philosophy and psychology, however, suggest that religious experience is an attributional cognitive phenomenon. Here the neural correlates of a religious experience are investigated using functional neuroimaging. During religious recitation, self-identified religious subjects activated a frontal-parietal circuit, composed of the dorsolateral prefrontal, dorsomedial frontal and medial parietal cortex. Prior studies indicate that these areas play a profound role in sustaining reflexive evaluation of thought. Thus, religious experience may be a cognitive process which, nonetheless, feels immediate.

Keywords: brain; human; neuroimaging; PET; religion

Document Type: Short communication

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1046/j.0953-816x.2001.01527.x

Affiliations: 1: Department of Neurology, University Hospital Düsseldorf, Germany 2: Department of Physiological Psychology, Heinrich-Heine-University, D-40225 Düsseldorf, Germany 3: Institute of Medicine, Research Center, D-52407 Jülich, Germany 4: Philosophical Institute, Heinrich-Heine-University, D-40225 Düsseldorf, Germany

Publication date: 2001-04-01