Neural correlates of religious experience.
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.
Azari
N P
NP
Department of Neurology, University Hospital Düsseldorf, Germany. nazari@du.edu
Nickel
J
J
Wunderlich
G
G
Niedeggen
M
M
Hefter
H
H
Tellmann
L
L
Herzog
H
H
Stoerig
P
P
Birnbacher
D
D
Seitz
R J
RJ
D000328:Adult; D001921:Brain / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging / Q000502:physiology*; D001931:Brain Mapping; D005260:Female; D005625:Frontal Lobe / Q000502:physiology; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D010296:Parietal Lobe / Q000502:physiology; D012067:Religion; D014055:Tomography, Emission-Computed