http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/10914137/What-God-does-to-your-brain.html

Newberg is director of research at the Jefferson Myrna Brind Centre of Integrative Medicine, in Philadelphia, and co-author of, among other books, The Metaphysical Mind: Probing the Biology of Philosophical Thought. He is a leading neurotheologist, pioneering a new and highly controversial science that investigates whether – as many sceptics have long suspected – God didn’t create us, but we created God.

During brain scans of those involved in various types of meditation and prayer, Newberg noticed increased activity in the limbic system, which regulates emotion. He also noted decreased activity in the parietal lobe, the part of the brain responsible for orienting oneself in space and time.

“When this happens, you lose your sense of self,” he says. “You have a notion of a great interconnectedness of things. It could be a sense where the self dissolves into nothingness, or dissolves into God or the universe.”

Such “mystical”, self-blurring experiences are central to almost all religions – from the unio mystica experienced by Carmelite nuns during prayer, when they claim their soul has mingled with the godhead, to Buddhists striving for unity with the universe through focusing on sacred objects. But if Newberg and his colleagues are correct, such experiences are not proof of being touched by a supreme being, but mere blips in brain chemistry.

“It seems that the brain is built in such a way that allows us as human beings to have transcendent experiences extremely easily, furthering our belief in a greater power,” Newberg says. This would explain why some type of religion exists in every culture, arguably making spirituality one of the defining characteristics of our species.

“I get attacked by everyone,” says Patrick McNamara, associate professor of neurology at Boston University and author of The Neuroscience of Religious Experience. “Atheists hate me because I’m saying religion has some basis in the brain and fundamentalist Christians hate me because I’m saying religion is nothing but brain impulses.”

Graham Ward, Regius Professor of Divinity at Oxford University and author of the forthcoming Unbelievable: Why We Believe and Why We Don’t, is sceptical about many neuroscientific attempts to explain God, pointing out that recent advances have weakened the theory that only one area of the brain is responsible for certain functions. “In any case,” he says, “the temporal lobes light up for any kind of excitement, not just religious experience.”

However, he agrees that it is imperative to examine religion scientifically. “Religion is at the root both of so many great civilisations and of so many wars, it has so much mythological power, we have to understand how it works and be alert to how dangerous it can be.”


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Spirituality, after all, serves a vital human purpose. Numerous studies show that religious belief is medically and psychologically (not to mention socially) beneficial. Reports have shown that churchgoers live an average seven years longer than heathens. They report lower blood pressure, recover quicker from breast cancer, have better outcomes from coronary disease and rheumatoid arthritis, have greater success with IVF and are less likely to have children with meningitis.

Patients with a strong “intrinsic faith” (a deep personal belief, not just a social inclination to go to a place of worship) recover 70 per cent faster from depression than those who are not deeply religious.
Changes in brain chemistry can also make people lose their religion. McNamara has used MRI scans on people with Parkinson’s disease.

“We discovered a subgroup who were quite religious but, as the disease progressed, lost some aspects of their religiosity,” he says. Sufferers’ brains lack the neurotransmitter dopamine, making McNamara suspect that religiosity is linked to dopamine activity in the prefrontal lobes. “These areas of the brain handle complexity best, so it may be that people with Parkinson’s find it harder to access complex religious experiences.”


“When religion is operating the way it ought – when we’re not talking about fanatics blowing up non-believers – it strengthens the prefrontal lobes, which helps inhibit impulses better,” McNamara says. “Religious activities such as prayer, ritual, abstaining from alcohol, strengthen the ability of frontal lobes to control primitive impulses.”

Such advantages aside, religions give their followers the benefits of a supportive social network – since research has shown lack of social contact can be more harmful to health than obesity, alcoholism and smoking 15 cigarettes a day. “Being part of a group is very important psychologically. In times of prosperity, people tend to question large movements, but during periods of economic stress, fundamentalist movements flourish,” says McNamara.

Interestingly, those who describe themselves as born-again do not show any evidence of this particular benefit in experiments. On the contrary, recent research by the Centre for the Study of Ageing at Duke University, North Carolina, revealed that there was significantly greater hippocampal atrophy (brain damage associated with depression, Alzheimer’s and dementia) in people who reported a life-changing religious experience, compared to religious people who did not describe themselves as born again.

The human psyche hates any form of cognitive dissonance – or challenge to ingrained beliefs – and so scientists think the struggles through which born-again Christians go in order to overcome their old modes of thinking cause severe stress to their brains.

In general, though, it seems that, if I want to be psychologically healthy, I need to ape the faithful. And it turns out I’m already working along the right lines. A few years ago, conscious of lacking regular social ties (before I worked from home, an office provided that), I made an effort to join community groups. I’ve also, recently, like many other people become interested in subjects such as yoga and mindfulness, a secular type of meditation.
Sceptics such as me used to consider such fields flaky, but now their health benefits are proven – not least in the way they strengthen prefrontal lobes – it would be foolish to dismiss them.

“We’ve granted quasi-religious status to well-being pursuits such as mindfulness; it’s like soft Buddhism, and it’s no bad thing,” says Ward. “We are so busy, so wound up, so the recognition that we are not machines and need to find therapeutic ways to deal with our stress is very welcome, however it comes about.”