Abstract
ABSTRACTHigh-level cognitive and emotional experience arises from brain activity, but the specific brain substrates for religious and spiritual euphoria remain unclear. We demonstrate using functional magnetic resonance imaging scans in 19 devout Mormons that a recognizable feeling central to their devotional practice was reproducibly associated with activation in nucleus accumbens, ventromedial prefrontal cortex, and frontal attentional regions. Nucleus accumbens activation preceded peak spiritual feelings by 1–3 s and was replicated in four separate tasks. Attentional activation in the anterior cingulate and frontal eye fields was greater in the right hemisphere. The association of abstract ideas and brain reward circuitry may interact with frontal attentional and emotive salience processing, suggesting a mechanism whereby doctrinal concepts may come to be intrinsically rewarding and motivate behavior in religious individuals.
Highlights
Religious and spiritual experiences share common phenomenological elements across cultures and theistic faith traditions, including a profound sense of elevated mood, noetic insight, ineffability, and a sense of integration within oneself and with others (James, 1902)
We demonstrated in a group of devout Mormons that religious experience, identified as “feeling the Spirit,” was associated with consistent brain activation across individuals within bilateral nucleus accumbens, frontal attentional, and ventromedial prefrontal cortical loci
Brain regions associated with representation of reward were reproducibly activated in four distinct acquisitions using three experimental paradigms, with activation immediately preceding peak spiritual feelings identified by the participants by 1–3 s
Summary
Religious and spiritual experiences share common phenomenological elements across cultures and theistic faith traditions, including a profound sense of elevated mood (euphoria), noetic insight, ineffability, and a sense of integration within oneself and with others (James, 1902). Similar feelings are described in association with romantic and parental love, reward, and drug-induced euphoric states, suggesting common neural mechanisms for these experiences. Among such rewarding stimuli, religious experience uniquely contributes to establishment of social systems with far-reaching consequences for pro- and antisocial behaviors (Decety et al, 2015; Shariff & Norenzayan, 2007). Hypotheses about the neurobiology underlying religious experience are discordant in the literature. Other reports have synthesized studies from the literature to suggest a right lateralized network involving amygdala, temporal, and frontal cortex as underlying religious experience (McNamara, 2009b). Others have hypothesized involvement of the ventral striatum and nucleus accumbens (Deeley, 2004; McNamara, 2009a; Schjoedt, Stodkilde-Jorgensen, Geertz, & Roepstorff, 2009)
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