Highly religious participants recruit areas of social cognition in personal prayer.
Uffe Schjoedt, Hans Stødkilde-Jørgensen, Armin W. Geertz, Andreas Roepstorff
Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience February 25, 2009 DOI: 10.1093/scan/nsn050 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Functional magnetic resonance imaging study Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Population | Danish Christians |
| Interventions | Formalized praying improvised praying |
| Keywords | Humans Oxygen Magnetic resonance imaging Brain mapping Cognition Social perception Reaction time Religion Image processing, computer-assisted Female Young adult |
| Key points | Improvised prayer, but not formalized prayer or secular control tasks, strongly activated the temporopolar region, medial prefrontal cortex, temporo-parietal junction, and precuneus. The authors argue that religious subjects who consider God 'real' and able to reciprocate requests recruit social cognition areas during prayer, and propose that praying to God is an intersubjective experience comparable to 'normal' interpersonal interaction. |
Abstract
We used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to investigate how performing formalized and improvised forms of praying changed the evoked BOLD response in a group of Danish Christians. Distinct from formalized praying and secular controls, improvised praying activated a strong response in the temporopolar region, the medial prefrontal cortex, the temporo-parietal junction and precuneus. This finding supports our hypothesis that religious subjects, who consider their God to be 'real' and capable of reciprocating requests, recruit areas of social cognition when they pray. We argue that praying to God is an intersubjective experience comparable to 'normal' interpersonal interaction.
Citations in the library
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- The Spiritual Brain: Selective Cortical Lesions Modulate Human Self-Transcendence Neuron February 1, 2010
- The Neural Correlates of Religious and Nonreligious Belief PLoS One September 30, 2009
- Perceiving Minds and Gods: How Mind Perception Enables, Constrains, and Is Triggered by Belief in Gods. Perspectives on Psychological Science July 1, 2013
- Neural correlates of mystical experience Neuropsychologia November 26, 2015
- Seeking the supernatural: the Interactive Religious Experience Model Religion, Brain & Behavior June 5, 2018
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