Regardless of whether you consider yourself a religious person or not, many people have probably experienced moments in life, which are called “spiritual” experience. In such situations, one usually feels an unprecedented rise, serenity or complete unity with the surrounding world. A group of U.S. and canadian neuroscientists decided to find out what is in those moments that happens to the human brain. And as it turned out, this organ actually has a Department responsible for “divine revelation” — religious experience and the presence of the supernatural. On their findings, the researchers shared the article in the journal Cerebral Cortex.
“Spiritual experience, typically is a dramatic event, often with a profound impact on people’s lives. Understanding of processes of neural activity during such religious and mystical events can help us better understand their role in restoring psychological health and the development of more effective methods in the treatment of addictive disorders,” says neuroscientist Marc Potenza of Yale University.
Religious and mystical experience includes a variety of experiences, including a feeling of unity with the higher powers and invisible beings. Shown that are involved in various neural structures and mechanisms of the Central nervous system, but most often changes are observed in the parietal part of the brain. It turned out that with decreasing activity in the lower parietal lobe (lobulus parietalis inferior), which is responsible for the creation of a sense of control over your own will may be an illusion of the presence of extraneous omnipotent being. In addition, stimulation of the lower parietal lobule leads to a decrease in religiosity. However, until now it was not established whether this part of the brain is associated with spiritual experience or she is responsible for any strong emotions like the feeling of reconnecting with nature.
In the study, neuroscientists was attended by 27 people aged 18 to 27 years. A week before the brain scans of volunteers asked to describe a situation in which they’d felt a connection with a higher power or divine presence. Participants also spoke about situations where they felt tension or relaxation. When conducting functional magnetic resonance imaging, subjects listened to audio recordings that reproduced the scenario with a relaxing, stress or spiritual experience.
It turned out that although the religious experience of participants differed in their brain activity was observed similar patterns. Thus decreased activity of the lower parietal lobule. It is known that the right part of this area is responsible for the correct perception of your own body in space and the sense of self-control, and the left — behind visual-spatial perception of the environment. In addition, it contains a motor and mirror neurons that help people to understand the intentions of other people by their movements. Thus, the decrease in activity of the parietal lobe, most likely, contributes to “meeting” with the supernatural.
Researchers agree that the religious experience of participants in the experiment cannot be called representative for the rest – this requires more extensive research with more participants from more diverse backgrounds. But at the same time, the scientists say that their study gives new view on how in our brain are formed sense of spirituality. According to scientists, the result can be a great starting point for future studies aimed at a deeper understanding of the mechanisms responsible for our mental health.
Improving “our empirical understanding of how our brain generates a sense of spirituality”, the scientists write, we will be able to “facilitate reasonable integration of religious ways in the methods of treatment and prevention for our mental health”.
Scientists discovered in the brain Department, responsible for the “spiritual experience”
Nikolai Khizhnyak