Scientists Find 'Spirituality' Center of Brain

Scientists have identified locations in the mind that, when damaged, lead to greater spirituality.
Your findings hint at the roots involving spiritual and also religious attitudes, the actual researchers
say.
The study, revealed in the Feb. 11 issue of the journal Neuron, involves the character trait known as
self-transcendence, which is actually a somewhat vague measure associated with spiritual feeling,
thinking, and behaviors. Self-transcendence "reflects any decreased sense of self plus an capacity to
recognize one's self as an integral part of the particular universe as being a whole," your
researchers explain.
Before and following surgery, the actual scientists surveyed patients who had mind tumors removed.
The Actual surveys create self-transcendence scores.
Selective damage towards the nearly everywhere posterior parietal
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/spiritual aspects of the particular mind induced a
specific increase in self-transcendence, or ST, your surveys showed.
"Our symptom-lesion mapping research is the really first demonstration of the causative link among
mind functioning as well as ST," mentioned Dr. Cosimo Urgesi from the university involving Udine
inside Italy. "Damage for you to posterior parietal locations induced unusually fast changes of your
stable personality dimension associated to transcendental self-referential awareness. Thus,
dysfunctional parietal neural exercise may underpin altered spiritual and religious attitudes along
with behaviors."
Previous neuroimaging studies had linked activity within a big network inside the brain that will
connects the actual frontal, parietal, and also temporal cortexes using spiritual experiences, "but
information on the causative hyperlink between such a network as well as spirituality can be
lacking," explains lead research author, Urgesi said.
One study, reported inside 2008, suggested the brain's right parietal lobe defines "Me," as well as
individuals with much less active Me-Definers tend to be much much more likely to end up being
able to lead spiritual lives.
The obtaining could result in new strategies regarding treating a few types associated with mental
illness.
"If any steady personality trait just like ST can easily undergo fast changes as getting a consequence
of brain lesions, it might indicate that will at least a few character dimensions might always be
modified by influencing neural exercise in certain areas," stated Dr. Salvatore M. Aglioti via
Sapienza College involving Rome. "Perhaps novel approaches aimed at modulating neural activity
might ultimately pave the particular method to new remedies associated with personality disorders."
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