Focuses on the theory of Vilayanur Ramashandran of the University
of California in San Diego that somewhere in the brain's temporal lobes
there may be neural circuitry for religious experience. Basis of his
theory; Experiment supporting his theory; Implication of his theory about
religious experience.
By
Jamie Talan, published on March 01, 1998
While looking into how the brain regulates behavior, I
VilayanurRamashandran, M.D., thinks he may have found God. The
neurologist believes that somewhere in the brain's temporal lobes there
may be neural circuitry for religious experience; he points to the fact
that about 25 percent of patients with temporal lobe epilepsy are
obsessed with religion. "I have temporal lobe patients walking into my
laboratory wearing a huge cross and carrying a 500-page tome on the
nature of God," says Ramashandran, of the University of California in San
Diego.
He thinks that these patients' seizures caused damage to the
pathway that connects two areas of the brain: the one that recognizes
sensory information and the one that gives such information emotional
context. "Everything becomes very significant," he says. "These patients
are seeing depth in every little thing."
To support his theory that there is a specialized circuitry in the
brain for religious experience, Ramashandran and his colleagues hooked up
temporal-lobe patients and healthy controls to a machine that records the
body's physical reactions to stimuli. Three groups of words were
presented to the patients: neutral words; profane or sexually loaded
words; and religious words.
Normal people set off the response meter when they read curses and
sexually expressive words. There was no response to the neutral or
religious words, even in normal volunteers who are devout. But some
patients with epilepsy gave the monitor a jolt when they were presented
with religious words--and not when they heard curses or sexual
words.
Ramashandran cautions that his findings are preliminary, and even
if proven in the laboratory, don't invalidate religious experience. "On
the contrary," he says, "they tell us what parts of the brain may be
involved."
ILLUSTRATION
Tags:
areas of the brain,
brain,
curses,
jolt,
nature of god,
neural circuitry,
neurologist,
neuroscience,
parts of the brain,
religion,
religions,
religious experience,
religious words,
Seizures,
stimuli,
temporal lobe,
temporal lobe epilepsy,
temporal lobes,
two areas
