Religious and spiritual experiences activate the same brain reward circuits as love, sex, gambling and drugs, a new study shows.
Researchers at the University of Utah School of Medicine scanned the brains of 19 Mormons when they were reading religious texts and reported feeling 'close to the spirit.'
The MRI scans showed activation in an area of the brain called the nucleus accumbens, which processes rewards and has been linked to feelings of romantic love and addictions like gambling.
Spiritual feelings also activated the medial prefrontal cortex, which is a complex region involved in valuation, judgment and moral reasoning. As participants were experiencing peak feelings, their hearts beat faster and their breathing deepened.
The findings suggest that undergoing a religious experience could alter thought and reasoning in the same way as being in love or battling an addiction.
"Religious experience is perhaps the most influential part of how people make decisions that affect all of us, for good and for ill," said senior author and neuroradiologist Dr Jeff Anderson, of the Utah School of Medicine.
"Understanding what happens in the brain to contribute to those decisions is really important.
"We're just beginning to understand how the brain participates in experiences that believers interpret as spiritual, divine or transcendent. In the last few years, brain imaging technologies have matured in ways that are letting us approach questions that have been around for millennia."
Mormons, as well as many other religions, use the feeling of feeling 'at one with God' in making decisions and view them as a means of Holy communion.
In hour long exams, seven females and 12 males were asked to read passages from the Book of Morman as well as undertaking other spiritual and non-spiritual tasks.
During each task they were asked the question 'Are you feeling the spirit?'' and were invited to give a range of answers.
They described feelings of peace and physical sensations of warmth. Many were in tears by the end of the scan.
"When our study participants were instructed to think about a savior, about being with their families for eternity, about their heavenly rewards, their brains and bodies physically responded," says lead author Dr Michael Ferguson, of University of Utah.
The study is the first initiative of the Religious Brain Project, launched by a group of University of Utah researchers in 2014, which aims to understand how the brain operates in people with deep spiritual and religious beliefs.
The findings are published in the journal Social Neuroscience.
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