Religious and spiritual practices form a very important part of people’s identity and decision-making. We know that religious experiences can provoke feelings of peace, love, tranquility and pleasure. There is still much to know, but The Religious Brainis the international initiative that tries to give us answers about the effects of religious practices on the brain.
One of the most recent studies of this project comes from the University of Utah. In this research, it was discovered that religious and spiritual moments are capable of producing reactions similar to those caused by drugs, sex, games or music.
The group consisted of 19 subjects (12 men and 7 women) who were asked to perform a series of tasks intended to awaken their spiritual response and which consisted mainly of watching religious videos and reading quotes that uplifted their religious spirit.
In order to find out if the religious activities had had their effect, the researchers asked the subjects if they had felt the spirit (God). The spiritual experience was so strong that most participants said they felt a greater spiritual connection, that they felt spiritual peace and warmth, and some even burst into tears.
Specifically, functional magnetic resonance images demonstrated that the religious experiences experienced by the subjects were related to the activation of the nucleus accumbens, an important area of reward processing, and the prefrontal cortex, which is related to moral reasoning and judgment.
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“Religious experience is perhaps the most influential part of how people make decisions that affect us all, for better and worse. Understanding what happens in the brain to contribute to those decisions is really important,” said Jeff Anderson, a neuro-radiologist and co-author of the study.
Although it may seem strange, today more is known about the neuronal effects of Eastern spiritual and contemplative practices than the effect of Western spiritual practices and with this research very important data is being obtained that will contribute to our understanding not only of the brain but of our humanity.
You can read it in the magazine Social Neuroscience.
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