Religious and spiritual experiences are neurologically similar to the euphoria of love and of drug-taking, a team of neuroscientists has concluded.
The team, led by a University of Utah neuroradiologist Jeffrey Anderson, found that in a group of 19 young Mormons, the same reward-based neural systems associated with drug-taking were activated when the individuals were “feeling the spirit”. Specifically, the nucleus accumbens was repeatedly activated, an area of the brain that is key to the circuit of reward and reinforcement. The frontal attentional, linked to attention, and the ventromedial prefrontal cortical loci, associated with decision-making were also activated. Those with damage to the ventromedial prefrontal cortical loci have been shown to exhibit antisocial behaviour and have their moral judgement impaired.
Explains a lot. We have all seen people treat their religion exactly like a drug addict treats the substance they abuse.
" "And that the participants may have self-reporting heightened spiritual feelings “out of a desire to appear more socially consistent with the aims of the study”. "
This part was super interesting to me. If that's the case, they are getting the hit of dopamine from social rewards, which belonging to a religion and performing religion would also provide. Interesting stuff, thanks for sharing!