Setting the agenda in research

Comment
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Despite most people around the globe identifying as religious, religiosity and spirituality are understudied.

Neuroscientists must not be

afraid to study religion
Patrick McNamara, William Newsome, Brie Linkenhoker & Jordan Grafman

A
Scientists interested in round 85% of the global population vice versa. This includes investigation of the
identifies as religious. Decades of effects of beliefs in supernatural agents or mir-
the brain have tended to work in the social sciences have found acles, practices around worship or prayer and
avoid studying religion or that religious or spiritual beliefs and participation in rituals.
practices can improve people’s health Such avoidance probably stems in part from
spirituality for fear of being and well-being; increase social cohesion, centuries of powerful religious institutions
seen as unscientific. That empathy and altruistic behaviour; and protect resisting scrutiny and interrogation. But
needs to change. people against cognitive decline or substance researchers and funders are also fearful that
abuse1. But also, throughout history, religion any investigation of religiosity or spirituality
and spirituality have amplified conflict, polar- could be seen either as promoting a particular
ization and oppression2–4. religion, or as flat-out unscientific.
Despite the manifest importance of faith as In 2021, researchers at the Public Health,
an influencer of human behaviour, neurosci- Religion, and Spirituality Network searched
entists have tended to steer clear of studying the records of more than 2.5 million project
how people’s beliefs affect their brains and proposals submitted to the US National

Nature | Vol 631 | 4 July 2024 | 25

Comment
Institutes of Health since 1985. They noted
that spirituality-related terms appeared in
only 0.05% of abstracts and 0.006% of titles,
whereas religion-related words appeared in
0.09% of abstracts and 0.009% of titles (see
go.nature.com/3jtez5q).
To better understand the human brain — as
well as religiosity and spirituality and their
effects on human life — this needs to change. We
call on scholars from diverse disciplines to help
establish a rigorous field: the neuroscience of
religion. Our goal is not to debunk or promote
religion or spirituality, but to understand the
neural mechanisms underlying their effects.

What’s known
Over the past century, but especially during
the past two decades, researchers in anthro-
pology, psychology, religious studies and
other fields have investigated and defined the

TOMOHIRO OHSUMI/GETTY
diverse beliefs, behaviours and social systems
associated with religious and spiritual practices
around the globe. In the late 1960s, for instance,
the US anthropologist George Murdock docu-
mented rituals directed at supernatural agents,
or beliefs in magical powers or supernatural
agents in 168 cultures5. Such works provide Participants in an ice-cold-water Shinto ritual hope to purify their bodies and souls.
knowledge and tools for neuroscientists.
Take, for example, the challenge of defining then, however, brain-imaging studies have around 40,000 participants in the UK Biobank
a particular belief or practice as being religious shown — unsurprisingly — that religious and cohort11. They found that connectivity in and
or spiritual. Psychologists have been using the spiritual experiences and practices (such as between brain regions involved in self-reflec-
Mystical Experiences Questionnaire (MEQ) prayer) are associated with the upregulation tion and in emotion regulation was greater
for around 55 years. Updated in 2012 (ref. 6), and downregulation of neural activity in multi- in people who regularly engage in religious
it was originally developed in 1969 by the US ple regions in the brain (see Fig. 1 of ref. 7). These practices than in those who regularly engage
psychiatrist Walter Pahnke, who used a classi- regions overlap extensively with brain networks in sports or in those who regularly engage in
fication of mystical experiences derived from that are modulated during mindfulness med- social activities. These variations in connectiv-
thousands of religious narratives mainly col- itation8. They also overlap with those that are ity patterns between the three groups — such
lected between 1900 and 1950. Using the MEQ, associated with multiple capabilities in social as in a group of brain regions called the default
researchers note whether self-reports of an cognition. This includes the ability to infer peo- mode network (DMN) — are strictly correlative.
experience mention a positive mood or ‘bliss- ple’s mental states and understand how those Whether religious experience contributes to
ful state’; inner peace or connectedness with states might influence their behaviour (theory certain connectivity patterns, or whether peo-
others or with nature; a transformed sense of of mind); the ability to distinguish between self ple who have certain connectivity patterns are
self; and so on. Each factor is scored accord- and other, including an imagined improved or predisposed to affiliate with religious groups,
ing to certain criteria. Experiences with a high enlightened self; and the ability to monitor who is an interesting topic for future research.
score are deemed religious or spiritual. belongs in a group and who does not9. Brain-imaging studies conducted over the
The MEQ and other psychological metrics The effects of brain lesions — such as those past decade indicate that psychedelic drugs
can be used with brain-imaging techniques resulting from a stroke — provide more modulate activity in several specific brain
that allow neuroscientists to map the neural evidence that neural networks involved in regions. These are the regions that are also
activity associated with all sorts of cogni- self-awareness and social cognition are linked modulated during religious and spiritual
tive, social and emotional processes. Such with religious or spiritual beliefs and prac- experiences or practices, and that are asso-
methods include functional magnetic reso- tices. In one study, 24 people reported that ciated with capabilities in social cognition12.
nance imaging (fMRI) and neuromodulation they experienced increased feelings of con- Most psychedelic drugs are known to affect
approaches that transiently alter the brain’s nectedness with other people and with nature neural pathways that are modulated by sero-
electrical activity — for instance, through (self-transcendence) after the removal of brain tonin. The data suggest that altering the activ-
electro-magnetic stimulation. tumours in a region called the temporopari- ity of circuits that are normally regulated by
Only a few investigators using these and etal cortex10. In the same study, 24 people who serotonin signalling, including those in the
related techniques have made religion or had tumours removed from a different brain DMN, can affect people’s sense of self, their
spirituality the main focus of their research. region — the frontotemporal cortex — didn’t feelings of connectedness with others and with
But replicable findings are starting to emerge. report such experiences. nature, and the likelihood that they will report
During the 1990s, mainstream media picked Other analyses using fMRI indicate that an encounter with a supernatural agent12,13.
up on reports of a ‘God spot’ in one region of people who regularly engage in spiritual or In other studies, researchers have reported
the temporal lobe. The reports were based on religious practices have measurable differ- dose-dependent effects of psychedelic drugs,
observations that religiosity was sometimes ences in their brains. with higher doses yielding more participants
drastically heightened in some people with In a 2023 study, researchers analysed reporting what they describe as religious or
symptoms of temporal-lobe epilepsy. Since neuroimaging and behavioural data from spiritual experiences. This supports the idea

26 | Nature | Vol 631 | 4 July 2024

that serotonergic modulation of brain circuits MEQ scores) after only 10 minutes of exposure. traditional religious affiliations and identify-
underlies these particular effects of psyche- Only 6% of the same participants reported ing themselves as spiritual, but not religious. In
delics13. Also, a systematic review of papers having mystical experiences in the control low-income countries, religious traditions are
on the reported effects of psychedelics pub- condition17. remaining strong or even expanding. Mean-
lished during 2015–20 indicates that many We are not maintaining that VR or psyche- while, more people around the globe classed
people have what they describe as religious delic-induced mystical experiences are equiv- as Generation Z (those born between 1997
or spiritual experiences after taking these alent to religious experiences. Nor do we think and 2012) seem to be embracing highly tradi-
drugs, which can have long-lasting effects on that experiments involving such interventions tional religious affiliations, such as traditional
their behaviour14. could ever adjudicate religious statements, Catholicism or Judaism.
These studies on psychedelics have involved such as that a supernatural agent exists. But Neuroscientists are well placed to identify
small numbers of participants so far (around if VR techniques and pharmacological manip- the ways in which — for good or for ill — these
5–20 per study) owing to the difficulty — and ulations can evoke experiences in the labora- shifts are affecting people’s brains and how
cost — of obtaining regulatory approval for the tory that have much in common with religious those changes might, in turn, shape people’s
drugs and providing the level of psycholog- or spiritual experiences in the real world, responses to emerging social, cultural and
ical support and evaluation needed. But the brain-imaging or brain-stimulation tech- ecological challenges.
findings are supported by the results of infor- niques could be used to map the neural activity
mal surveys of several thousand respondents associated with such experiences. Likewise,
who have experience with psychedelics15,16. In systematically altering the environment could The authors
one survey, most of the participants reported identify the conditions under which certain
having encounters with supernatural entities, individuals report experiencing an encounter Patrick McNamara is a professor of
or reported that their experience had trans- with a supernatural agent. psychology at National University, San Diego,
formed their sense of self. In the same survey, California, and a professor of neurology
around 28% of the participants reported that A changing world at Boston University, Massachusetts,
they were atheist before taking the drug15. Only Some neuroscientists are beginning to col- USA. William Newsome is a professor
10% said that they were atheist afterwards. laborate with religious scholars worldwide, of neurobiology in the Department of
for instance in the Cognitive Neuroscience of Neurobiology, Stanford University School of
Digging deeper Religious Cognition project, a three-year effort Medicine, California, USA. Brie Linkenhoker is
Such fascinating neuroscience-based findings that two of us ( J.G. and P.M.) are involved in. the founder and chief executive of Worldview
have emerged despite there being very few But to realize the promise of this emerging Studio, Menlo Park, California, USA. Jordan
researchers working on the problem. In our field, hundreds of cognitive neuroscientists Grafman is a professor of rehabilitation
view, a much richer understanding could be and biomedical researchers need to engage medicine at Feinberg School of Medicine,
obtained — not just through more researchers with these questions, and more. Northwestern University, Chicago, Illinois, and
engaging with the topic and more funders sup- director of brain-injury research at the Shirley
porting the work, but through investigators “A neuroscientific Ryan AbilityLab, Chicago, Illinois, USA.
using newly available tools. e-mails: pmcnamar3@gmail.com;
Artificial intelligence (AI), for example, could
interrogation of religiosity jgrafman@northwestern.edu
be used to identify brain-activity patterns asso- and spirituality is crucial to
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having mystical experiences (measured by of people in high-income countries are leaving The authors declare no competing interests.

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