Elsevier

Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews

Volume 73, February 2017, Pages 359-378
Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews

Review article
Brain mechanisms in religion and spirituality: An integrative predictive processing framework

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neubiorev.2016.12.031Get rights and content

Highlights

  • A predictive processing framework of religion and spirituality is presented.

  • Interoceptive and exteroceptive error monitoring support religious belief and experience.

  • We describe five neurocognitive mechanisms involved in religion and spirituality.

  • We integrate neuroimaging, patient, brain stimulation and psychopharmacological studies.

  • Philosophical and theological implications of our framework are discussed.

Abstract

We present the theory of predictive processing as a unifying framework to account for the neurocognitive basis of religion and spirituality. Our model is substantiated by discussing four different brain mechanisms that play a key role in religion and spirituality: temporal brain areas are associated with religious visions and ecstatic experiences; multisensory brain areas and the default mode network are involved in self-transcendent experiences; the Theory of Mind-network is associated with prayer experiences and over attribution of intentionality; top-down mechanisms instantiated in the anterior cingulate cortex and the medial prefrontal cortex could be involved in acquiring and maintaining intuitive supernatural beliefs. We compare the predictive processing model with two-systems accounts of religion and spirituality, by highlighting the central role of prediction error monitoring. We conclude by presenting novel predictions for future research and by discussing the philosophical and theological implications of neuroscientific research on religion and spirituality.

Introduction

The last decades have seen an increased interest in studying the biological and neurocognitive basis of spirituality and religion. Through the use of neuroimaging techniques, brain stimulation studies and studies with neuropsychological patients, our understanding of the brain areas and networks involved in religion has increased dramatically, thereby providing unique insight in the proximate mechanisms that support supernatural beliefs and experiences. However, many findings in the literature often appear to be contradictory, lack appropriate methods and analyses, and the results are inconclusive [e.g., Schjoedt, 2009]. Furthermore, there is currently no up-to-date review and integrative framework that accounts for the different findings that have been reported in the literature. The most recent systematic reviews of neuroimaging studies on religion and spirituality date from before 2010 (Schjoedt, 2009, Cahn and Polich, 2006, Fingelkurts and Fingelkurts, 2009) and since then many new studies have been conducted that are highly relevant for our understanding of the neurocognitive basis of religion and spirituality. Therefore the aim of this review article is to develop a theoretical framework to account for the neurocognitive basis of religious and spiritual beliefs and experiences and to show how this framework is substantiated by empirical findings. To this end we will discuss neuropsychological studies, experimental studies using brain stimulation techniques and psychopharmacological manipulations, and neuroimaging studies that have focused on the topic of religion and spirituality.

First, we present a novel integrative model regarding the neurocognitive basis of religion and spirituality. Building on concepts derived from predictive processing accounts (Apps and Tsakiris, 2014a, Clark, 2013, Seth, 2013), we propose a model in which religious beliefs and experiences are primarily related to a differential weighting of interoceptive and exteroceptive information. Next, to substantiate our model with empirical evidence, we distinguish four neurocognitive mechanisms underlying specific religious beliefs and experiences (see: Table 1). First, we describe the role of the temporal cortex and the limbic system in religious experiences and self-transcendent emotions. Second, we highlight how brain areas supporting multisensory integration and the default mode network (DMN) are involved in spiritual and self-transcendent experiences. Third, we focus on the so-called theory-of-mind (ToM) network that could play a role in personal experiences of God (Spreng et al., 2009). Fourth, the role of top-down processes (i.e., expectations, inhibition and prediction error-monitoring mechanisms) in religious beliefs and experiences is discussed.

Our proposed model is unique as it provides a unifying account of the neurocognitive basis of religiosity and spirituality thereby integrating recent findings from different fields (e.g., contemporary cognitive psychology and neuroscience, the psychology and anthropology of religion). The model also provides a systematic overview of cognitive elicitors of religious and spiritual experiences and thereby allows generating novel and testable predictions to be addressed in future studies and we discuss the hypothesis-generating potential of our framework in Section 4. We also relate the predictive processing model to dual process accounts of religion and spirituality, such as the corrective model (Risen, 2016, Kahneman and Frederick, 2005) and cognitive-experiential self-theory (Kirkpatrick and Epstein, 1992, Epstein, 1994). In the final section we discuss the potential shortcomings and limitations of the different studies that we presented and we discuss the philosophical and theological implications of neuroscientific research on religion and spirituality.

Section snippets

Defining religion and spirituality

Religion and spirituality are broad phenomena that entail a wide range of different beliefs, practices and experiences and in the literature many different definitions have been proposed (Paloutzian and Park, 2013). In our review we start from a so-called building block approach to the study of religion and spirituality (Taves, 2011, Taves and Asprem, 2016), by focusing on the basic constituent neurocognitive mechanisms that enable the emergence of religious and spiritual phenomena. On this

Hallucinations and predictive signals

With respect to religious hallucinations and visions (e.g., seeing the virgin Mary; hearing the voice of God), on the predictive processing account these experiences are likely related to imprecise coding of predictive signals (Fletcher and Frith, 2009). Self-generated action, thought and mental imagery is typically accompanied by efferent signals that send predictive signals to lower-level sensory regions regarding the expected sensory consequences. Imprecision in the coding of these

Implications of the predictive processing framework

In this section we will shortly discuss the hypothesis-generating potential of the predictive processing framework. We will highlight how the proposed framework leads to novel and testable predictions and what type of studies would be needed to confirm the framework. In the second part we will discuss the relation between the predictive processing framework and other psychological accounts of religious and spiritual beliefs and experiences (i.e., most notably dual process theories). We will

Critical remarks and limitations

Throughout this review we have discussed and presented relevant research findings as if taken at face value, without paying close attention to the potential methodological and statistical shortcomings of the different studies. Although the studies that we discussed provide a fascinating perspective on the potential neurocognitive mechanisms underlying religious and spiritual beliefs and experiences, we note that at present they provide anecdotal evidence at best. That is, many studies suffer

Conclusions

As becomes apparent from our literature review there is no specialized module supporting supernatural beliefs and experiences. We have shown that different aspects of religious beliefs and experiences are subserved by different neurocognitive mechanisms. The predictive processing framework provides a unifying account of these different findings, by describing how a differential weighting of interoceptive and exteroceptive information and a process of reduced prediction error monitoring may be

Acknowledgement

This research was supported by a VENI grant no. 016.135.135 to the first author from the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO)

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