Neural correlates of religious experience

• Published in: The European journal of neuroscience Vol. 13; no. 8; pp. 1649 - 1652
• Main Authors: Azari, Nina P., Nickel, Janpeter, Wunderlich, Gilbert, Niedeggen, Michael, Hefter, Harald, Tellmann, Lutz, Herzog, Hans, Stoerig, Petra, Birnbacher, Dieter, Seitz, Rüdiger J.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Oxford, UK Blackwell Science Ltd 01.04.2001
• Subjects: Adult; brain; Brain - diagnostic imaging; Brain - physiology; Brain Mapping; Female; Frontal Lobe - physiology; human; Humans; Male; neuroimaging; Parietal Lobe - physiology; PET; Religion; Tomography, Emission-Computed
• ISSN: 0953-816X; 1460-9568
• DOI: 10.1046/j.0953-816x.2001.01527.x

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.