Study Shows Religious Experiences Utilize Several Areas of Brain

Ker Than/TN : Sep 3, 2006
LiveScience

According to an analysis in LiveScience, the study involved 15 cloistered Carmelite nuns, ranging in age from 23 to 64, who had their brains scanned while asked to relive the most intense mystical experience they had ever had.

Reporter Ker Than noted the new study found that "the sense of union with God or something greater than the self often described by those who have undergone such experiences involves the recruitment and activation of a variety of brain regions normally implicated in different functions, such as self-consciousness, emotion and body representation."

The study reportedly concluded that mystical experiences activate more than a dozen different areas of the brain at once. One of the regions, called the caudate nucleus, has been implicated in positive emotions such as happiness, romantic love and maternal love, noted Than, adding that this region of the brain is related to "feelings of joy and unconditional love."