Looking for God in the Brain: Neural Correlates of Religiosity

What makes humans religious? There must be something about our brain that makes religion a common denominator of humanity. Is there some area in our brain dedicated to the perception of the divine? Or maybe it is all just in our minds. Studying the neural correlates of religious behavior is no easy task, but some scientists have dared to address these questions.

To Believe Or Not Believe, Is That the Question?

How can we study the neural underpinnings of religion, this complex cultural phenomenon that affects many aspects of human behavior? Well, we can start by asking people if they believe in it. It is assumed that having faith is a prerequisite to comprehend and find relevance in religious activity. Whether or not faith and belief are the same thing is an ongoing debate in theology. Nevertheless, it is obvious that religious people believe that the specific word view provided by their religion is true. Therefore, an important area of research has focused on the neural correlates of what is happening in the brain when you judge a statement as true or false.
Interestingly, in a study in which subjects were asked to rate different kinds of statements as true, false or undecided, agreement generally activated the same brain area: the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) [1]. The vmPFC is strongly connected to the limbic system and incorporates emotional and reward associations to factual knowledge and reasoning tasks. This means that the act of agreeing with a statement, be it “2+2=4 “or “Jesus is the son of God”, activates the same area of the brain linked with positive emotions. In contrast, rejecting a statement as false differentially activated areas associated with feelings of disgust, such as the anterior insula, an area involved in the perception of pain and unpleasant odors.

A spiritual side to the brain?

In another study [2], the same group compared the brain activity of Christians and non-believers when agreeing or disagreeing with religious and non-religious statements. The answers (either true or false) to non-religious statements activated temporal areas of the brain associated with memory retrieval like the hippocampus, while the answers to religious statements activated similar areas of the brain found for disagreement in the previous study (likely from non-believers). In addition, the posterior medial cortex was activated, an area that is associated with the evaluation of self. That means that the participants were affirming their identity when agreeing or disagreeing with religious statements.

courtesy of Hector Salaza

Also interesting was the response to blasphemous statements like “the Biblical God is a myth”. The ventral striatum, a critical component of the reward system, was highly activated when believers rejected the blasphemy as false as well as when non-believers accepted the blasphemy as true. These findings make sense as we all know how Christians enjoy rejecting blasphemies while non-believers seem to take special pleasure in affirming them.

Talking To God – As a Friend
A key belief across religions is in the capacity to communicate with their God(s) through prayer. It was shown that praying, both through "official" religious texts and personal prayer, activates the reward system, specifically the dorsal striatum, which is associated with the expectation of future rewards and habit maintenance [3]. Interestingly, personal prayer activates areas of social cognition. In a study that compared personal prayer versus the Lord’s Prayer (an important part of Christian religious ceremonies) or making wishes to Santa Claus in committed Christians (who believed in God but not in Santa), it was found that personal praying differentially activates the temporoparietal junction, temporopolar region and the anterior mPFC. These three regions have been described as the “theory of mind” (ToM) areas, which are active when thinking about other people’s emotions and intentions [4]. This indicates that personal prayers imitate everyday social communication with real persons and provides God with intent and reciprocity (all the participants affirmed that God answered their prayer in some way). Indeed, it was found in another study that the activation of the ToM areas occurred before the activation of other non-ToM areas when accepting religious statements [5].
So far, no "God brain area" has been found. However, these findings tell us that religious people are no different than non-religious in the process of believing or disbelieving, which always comes with an emotional tone. In addition, it seems that religious thoughts are strongly linked to identity and social cognition. Interestingly, this supports theories from evolutionary psychology that religiousness might have emerged as a by-product of increasingly sophisticated ToM areas [6]. In other words: if there really is a God or other holy figure(s), it might just as well be that we believe in them "by (evolutionary) chance".

[1] Harris et al, Ann Neurol, 2008
[2] Harris et al, Plos One, 2009
[3] Schjoedt et al, Neurosci Lett, 2008
[4] Schjoedt et al, Soc Cogn Affect Neurosci, 2009
[5] Kapogiannis et al, Brain Connect, 2014
[6] Boyer, Trends Cogn Sci, 2003

by Silvina Romero Suárez,  PhD Student AG Infante

This article originally appeared September 2017 in CNS Volume 10, Issue 3, Spirituality in Science