Repetitive Religious Chanting Modulates the Late-Stage Brain Response to Fear- and Stress-Provoking Pictures.

Junling Gao,Hinhung Sik,Chunqi Chang,Bonnie W Wu,Peter C Fung,Maggie Chau,Jicong Fan,Georgios T Halkias,Zhiguo Zhang,Yeung-Sam Hung

doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2016.02055

Abstract

Chanting and praying are among the most popular religious activities, which are said to be able to alleviate people’s negative emotions. However, the neural mechanisms underlying this mental exercise and its temporal course have hardly been investigated. Here, we used event-related potentials (ERPs) to explore the effects of chanting the name of a Buddha (Amitābha) on the brain’s response to viewing negative pictures that were fear- and stress-provoking. We recorded and analyzed electroencephalography (EEG) data from 21 Buddhists with chanting experience as they viewed negative and neutral pictures. Participants were instructed to chant the names of Amitābha or Santa Claus silently to themselves or simply remain silent (no-chanting condition) during picture viewing. To measure the physiological changes corresponding to negative emotions, electrocardiogram and galvanic skin response data were also collected. Results showed that viewing negative pictures (vs. neutral pictures) increased the amplitude of the N1 component in all the chanting conditions. The amplitude of late positive potential (LPP) also increased when the negative pictures were viewed under the no-chanting and the Santa Claus condition. However, increased LPP was not observed when chanting Amitābha. The ERP source analysis confirmed this finding and showed that increased LPP mainly originated from the central-parietal regions of the brain. In addition, the participants’ heart rates decreased significantly when viewing negative pictures in the Santa Claus condition. The no-chanting condition had a similar decreasing trend although not significant. However, while chanting Amitābha and viewing negative pictures participants’ heart rate did not differ significantly from that observed during neutral picture viewing. It is possible that the chanting of Amitābha might have helped the participants to develop a religious schema and neutralized the effect of the negative stimuli. These findings echo similar research findings on Christian religious practices and brain responses to negative stimuli. Hence, prayer/religious practices may have cross-cultural universality in emotion regulation. This study shows for the first time that Buddhist chanting, or in a broader sense, repetition of religious prayers will not modulate brain responses to negative stimuli during the early perceptual stage, but only during the late-stage emotional/cognitive processing.

Highlights

Religion and spirituality have long co-existed in Western and Eastern civilizations
Chanting and prayer are the most popular religious practices and many religious devotees believe that these practices would help them to live through hardships
It turned out that chanting Amitabha could reduce the individual’s emotional response at the late-stage, but not at the earlystage processing of negative events. This finding confirms our hypothesis that the processing of negative information, religious practice such as chanting would not affect the early neural processing of N1 but only affect the late-stage processing of late positive potential (LPP)

Summary

Introduction

Religion and spirituality have long co-existed in Western and Eastern civilizations. Among a variety of religious activities, praying and chanting are quite common forms of practice in major religions including Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism, etc. In Southeast Asia, chanting Amitabha Buddha is among the most common religious practices, and it dates back to Indian Buddhism. Buddhist practitioners of the Pure Land School have integrated the chanting of the name of Amitabha throughout their daily activities (Halkias, 2013a). According to the religious beliefs of Pure Land practitioners, the consistent chanting of Amitabha is a mind-training technique that can “hamper conceptual proliferation, quiet the discursive mind and the elimination of one’s wanton grasping after the fleeting impressions of the senses” (Halkias, 2013b)

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Conclusion