This article came from Discover - it's a little more in-depth:Brain changes linked to spirituality
Thursday, February 11, 2010 18:24
WASHINGTON: By studying patients before and after surgery to remove a brain tumour, a team of Italian researchers has identified anatomical changes in the brain that may be linked to shifts in spiritual and religious attitudes.
The team has uncovered another clue that directly links brain activity and spirituality.
"Neuroimaging studies have linked activity within a large network in the brain that connects the frontal, parietal, and temporal cortexes with spiritual experiences, but information on the causative link between such a network and spirituality is lacking," lead study author Dr Cosimo Urgesi, from the University of Udine in Italy, was quoted as saying.
Dr. Urgesi's team scored patients on a personality train called self-transcendence (ST) before and after brain tumour surgery and combined analysis of those scores with advanced brain mapping.
They found selective damage to the left and right posterior parietal regions of the brain caused a specific increase in ST.
"Damage to posterior parietal areas induced unusually fast changes of a stable personality dimension related to transcendental self-referential awareness," Urgesi.
"Thus, dysfunctional parietal neural activity may underpin altered spiritual and religious attitudes and behaviours," Urgesi added.
Self-transcendence is thought by experts to be a measure of spiritual feeling, thinking and behaviours that reflects a decreased sense of self and an ability to identify oneself as an integral part of the universe.The study has been published by Cell Press in the February 11 issue of the journal Neuron.
Finally, here is the abstract to the original article:Damage to One Brain Region Can Boost “Transcendent” Feelings
Does the human brain have a “God spot”–a particular region that regulates feelings of spirituality and connection to the universe? One year ago, DISCOVER reported on a scientific study of spiritual people that couldn’t pinpoint one location in the brain as key to controlling religious feelings. But now a new study proposes that there is a link between the physical make-up of the brain and attitudes towards religion and spirituality.
By observing brain cancer patients before and after brain surgery, researchers in Italy have found that damage to the posterior part of the brain, specifically in an area called the parietal cortex, can increase patients’ feelings of “self transcendence,” or feeling at one with the universe. The parietal cortex is the region that is is usually involved in maintaining a sense of self, for example by helping you keep track of your body parts. It has also been linked to prayer and meditation [New Scientist].
The study, led by psychologist Cosimo Urgesi of the University of Udine in Italy, surveyed 88 brain cancer patients before and after surgery to remove their tumors. They were made to fill out a questionnaire regarding their beliefs, including a section to check their measure of “self-transcendence.” People score highly for this trait if they answer “yes” to questions such as: “I often feel so connected to the people around me that I feel like there is no separation”; “I feel so connected to nature that everything feels like one single organism”; and “I got lost in the moment and detached from time”. The same people also tend to believe in miracles, extrasensory perception and other non-material phenomena [New Scientist].
The scientists found that before the surgery, patients with parietal cortex tumors reported higher levels of self-transcendence than patients with tumors in the frontal cortex. After the tumors were removed, the parietal cortex patients had even higher self-transcendence scores, while the frontal cortex patients showed no change.
The researchers say these findings, published in the journal Neuron, suggest that selective damage to the parietal cortex caused a specific increase in religiosity and spirituality. Patients who had parietal cortex tumors removed also dealt better with bad news regarding their mortality and health; while the ones with problems in the frontal cortex were more bitter about health problems. Urgesi hypothesized that naturally low activity in parietal regions in people without either brain damage or cancer could predispose them to self-transcendent feelings, and perhaps even to religions that emphasize such experiences such as Buddhism [New Scientist].
Critics point out that the study left a lot of unanswered questions, and note that directly equating spirituality to the self-transcendence scale is somewhat controversial. But other researchers see this study as an important step in understanding the religious brain. Anjan Chatterjee, a neurologist at the University of Pennsylvania said, “Sometimes people are quite skeptical about combining spirituality and religion with neuroscience,” he says. “This is one of the few things I’ve read that gives the hope that some of these questions might be tractable” [ScienceNow Daily News].
Related Content:
Image: Cosimo Urgesi
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The Spiritual Brain: Selective Cortical Lesions Modulate Human Self-Transcendence
Cosimo Urgesi, Salvatore M. Aglioti, Miran Skrap, Franco Fabbro
Highlights
* Self-transcendence is a stable personality trait measuring predisposition to spirituality
* Brain damage induces specific and fast modulations of self-transcendence
* Self-transcendence increases after damage to lt and rt inferior parietal cortex
Summary
The predisposition of human beings toward spiritual feeling, thinking, and behaviors is measured by a supposedly stable personality trait called self-transcendence. Although a few neuroimaging studies suggest that neural activation of a large fronto-parieto-temporal network may underpin a variety of spiritual experiences, information on the causative link between such a network and spirituality is lacking. Combining pre- and post-neurosurgery personality assessment with advanced brain-lesion mapping techniques, we found that selective damage to left and right inferior posterior parietal regions induced a specific increase of self-transcendence. Therefore, modifications of neural activity in temporoparietal areas may induce unusually fast modulations of a stable personality trait related to transcendental self-referential awareness. These results hint at the active, crucial role of left and right parietal systems in determining self-transcendence and cast new light on the neurobiological bases of altered spiritual and religious attitudes and behaviors in neurological and mental disorders.
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