February 12, 2010
New Findings Suggest Spiritual Center in Brain
Joseph Brownstein at ABC News:
Medically speaking, it was just brain surgery. But for some patients, it was a spiritual reawakening.
Researchers report in a new study today that they have found regions of the brain that seem to impact a person's level of spirituality.
The researchers worked with 88 patients with tumors in various locations in the brain and found that those with damage in the parietal region -- located in the top rear region of the brain -- could be seen to have a change in their attitude toward spirituality, something that tends to be relatively constant in a person.
"This finding highlights the key role of parietal cortices in spirituality and suggests that changes of neural activity in specific areas may modify even inherently stable dispositional traits," explained Cosimo Urgesi, one of the study's lead researchers and an assistant professor in psychobiology and physiological psychology at the University of Udine in Italy.
The specific scale researchers used to determine spirituality is known as self-transcendence, a measure used to determine spirituality that appears to remain stable in a person over time.
More here.
Posted by Abbas Raza at 04:50 AM | Permalink
Comments
The research and publications of Andrew Newberg MD are relevant to this article and discussion:
http://www.andrewnewberg.com/qna.asp
He does a nice job of telling us what science can and can not tell us about spirituality and related matters.
His fMRI research is fascinating.
Posted by: Norman Costa | Feb 13, 2010 2:54:13 PM
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