Religiosity and Spiritual Acceptance Localized to a Specific Brain Circuit

[iNow]

An interesting finding, adding to other existing work that had already similarly pointed in this direction. Perhaps some of us truly are just "wired" differently. What do you think?

 

https://neurosciencenews.com/spirituality-brain-neurotheology-18845/

Quote

A new study led by investigators at Brigham and Women’s Hospital takes a new approach to mapping spirituality and religiosity and finds that spiritual acceptance can be localized to a specific brain circuit.

This brain circuit is centered in the periaqueductal gray (PAG), a brainstem region that has been implicated in numerous functions, including fear conditioning, pain modulation, altruistic behaviors and unconditional love.

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Of the 88 neurosurgical patients, 30 showed a decrease in self-reported spiritual belief before and after neurosurgical brain tumor resection, 29 showed an increase, and 29 showed no change. Using lesion network mapping, the team found that self-reported spirituality mapped to a specific brain circuit centered on the PAG. The circuit included positive nodes and negative nodes — lesions that disrupted these respective nodes either decreased or increased self-reported spiritual beliefs.

 

[dimreepr]

51 minutes ago, iNow said:

An interesting finding, adding to other existing work that had already similarly pointed in this direction. Perhaps some of us truly are just "wired" differently. What do you think?

 

https://neurosciencenews.com/spirituality-brain-neurotheology-18845/

 

I'm back to, who cares?

[Goude]

On 7/2/2021 at 9:22 AM, dimreepr said:

I'm back to, who cares?

Is there a place in the brain for politics sports, etc., etc. I don't believe that study is valid\. No one will find any data stored in the brain. The brain is merely an interface between spirit and body, nothing more.

[Conscious Energy]

I haven’t been specifically religious until I turned around 30. Coming with the heritage of Luther, today I am a strong believer of, that Nature is One entity and it is fundamentally lead by information. I can not grab this information exactly to understand, so there are some beliefs around it. I could call it fate, that Nature is Real. I call myself today a strong believer, which changed significantly in the past 13 years. Would be interesting to see scans of my brain from 15 years ago and today. Would be there different brain areas active during religious thoughts or the same area but more active?

I build my believe system by observing Nature, learn our best understanding of it and evaluate the whole by logic (I liked to think).
 

It would be interesting to see, that is there different brain activity, compared to an individual, gained strong fate, through learned religious dogma. 

Edited July 23, 2021 by Conscious Energy

[MigL]

At best, it is a correlation that a specific type of behaviour is facilitated by a certain 'arrangement' of one part of the brain.
Religiosity and spirituality merely examples of that specific type of behaviour.

Maybe the specific type of behaviour is 'feeling guilty'; most religions encourage, and take advantage of, that 'feeling'.

And yes, most of us do care.
( but not enough to give Dim a neg rep )

[Goude]

On 7/23/2021 at 4:14 PM, MigL said:

At best, it is a correlation that a specific type of behaviour is facilitated by a certain 'arrangement' of one part of the brain.
Religiosity and spirituality merely examples of that specific type of behaviour.

Maybe the specific type of behaviour is 'feeling guilty'; most religions encourage, and take advantage of, that 'feeling'.

And yes, most of us do care.
( but not enough to give Dim a neg rep )

I tend to think spiritual beliefs are different from religious beliefs. I quit religion and church as a young man because it scared me and was not logical. Then at the age of 49 I experienced a heart attack with what I learned was a near death experience. It opened up a new look at myself and the world as spiritual. I am thinking there is a "separate intelligent energy" that controls the brain and continues to live after the death of the brain and body. It is probable that this is true.

[TheVat]

I bumped my head on a rafter in the attic last week,  jostled my PAG region,  and promptly had a spiritual transformation in which I called upon a deity to damn that rafter beam to eternal hell.   I also suggested an unnatural sexual act involving the rafter, but that's less germane to the PAG region functions.