Functional neuroimaging of belief, disbelief, and uncertainty

Thalamocortical dysrhythmia and reward deficiency syndrome as uncertainty disorders

A common anatomical core has been described for psychiatric disorders, consisting of the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (dACC) and anterior insula, processing uncertainty. A common neurophysiological core has been described for other brain related disorders, called thalamocortical dysrhythmia (TCD), consisting of persistent cross-frequency coupling between low and high frequencies. And a common genetic core has been described for yet another set of hypodopaminergic pathologies called reward deficiency syndromes (RDS). Considering that some RDS have the neurophysiological features of TCD, it can be hypothesized that TCD and RDS have a common anatomical core, yet a differentiating associated neurophysiological mechanism. The EEGs of 683 subjects are analysed in source space for both differences and conjunction between TCD and healthy controls, RDS and healthy controls, and between TCD and RDS. A balance between current densities of the pregenual anterior cingulate cortex (pgACC) extending into the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) and dACC is calculated as well. TCD and RDS share a common anatomical and neurophysiological core, consisting of beta activity in the dACC and theta activity in dACC extending into precuneus and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex. TCD and RDS differ in pgACC/vmPFC activity and demonstrate an opposite balance between pgACC/vmPFC and dACC. Based on the Bayesian brain model TCD and RDS can be defined as uncertainty disorders in which the pgACC/vmPFC and dACC have an opposite balance, possibly explained by an inverted-U curve profile of both pgACC/vmPFC and dACC.

Deciphering the neural responses to a naturalistic persuasive message

Effective health promotion may benefit from understanding how persuasion emerges. While earlier research has identified brain regions implicated in persuasion, these studies often relied on event-related analyses and frequently simplified persuasive communications. The present study investigates the neural basis of valuation change induced by a persuasive healthy eating call, employing naturalistic stimuli. Fifty healthy participants performed two blocks of a bidding task, in which they had to bid on sugar-containing, sugar-free, and nonedible products during functional MRI. In between the two blocks, they listened to a persuasive healthy eating call that influenced their bidding behavior. Intriguingly, participants who resisted persuasion exhibited increased synchronization of brain activity during listening in several regions, including default mode network structures. Additionally, intersubject functional connectivity among these brain regions was found to be weaker in persuaded individuals. These results emphasize the individualized nature of processing persuasive messages, challenging conventional interpretations of synchronized neural activity. Our findings support the emerging practice of tailoring persuasive messages in health promotion campaigns.

The truth is in there: Belief processes in the human brain

Belief, defined by William James as the mental state or function of cognizing reality, is a core psychological function with strong influence on emotion and behavior. Furthermore, strong and aberrant beliefs about the world and oneself play important roles in mental disorders. The underlying processes of belief have been the matter of a long debate in philosophy and psychology, and modern neuroimaging techniques can provide insight into the underlying neural processes. Here, we conducted a functional magnetic resonance imaging study with N = 30 healthy participants in which we presented statements about facts, politics, religion, conspiracy theories, and superstition. Participants judged whether they considered them as true (belief) or not (disbelief) and reported their certainty in the decision. We found belief-associated activations in bilateral dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, left superior parietal cortex, and left lateral frontopolar cortex. Disbelief-associated activations were found in an anterior temporal cluster extending into the amygdala. We found a larger deactivation for disbelief than belief in the ventromedial prefrontal cortex that was most pronounced during decisions, suggesting a role of the vmPFC in belief-related decision-making. As a category-specific effect, we found disbelief-associated activation in retrosplenial cortex and parahippocampal gyrus for conspiracy theory statements. Exploratory analyses identified networks centered at anterior cingulate cortex for certainty, and dorsomedial prefrontal cortex for uncertainty. The uncertainty effect identifies a neural substrate for Alexander Bain's notion from 1859 of uncertainty as the real opposite of belief. Taken together, our results suggest a two-factor neural process model of belief with falsehood/veracity and uncertainty/certainty factors.

A Manifesto in Defense of Pain Complexity: A Critical Review of Essential Insights in Pain Neuroscience

Chronic pain has increasingly become a significant health challenge, not just as a symptomatic manifestation but also as a pathological condition with profound socioeconomic implications. Despite the expansion of medical interventions, the prevalence of chronic pain remains remarkably persistent, prompting a turn towards non-pharmacological treatments, such as therapeutic education, exercise, and cognitive-behavioral therapy. With the advent of cognitive neuroscience, pain is often presented as a primary output derived from the brain, aligning with Engel's Biopsychosocial Model that views disease not solely from a biological perspective but also considering psychological and social factors. This paradigm shift brings forward potential misconceptions and over-simplifications. The current review delves into the intricacies of nociception and pain perception. It questions long-standing beliefs like the cerebral-centric view of pain, the forgotten role of the peripheral nervous system in pain chronification, misconceptions around central sensitization syndromes, the controversy about the existence of a dedicated pain neuromatrix, the consciousness of the pain experience, and the possible oversight of factors beyond the nervous system. In re-evaluating these aspects, the review emphasizes the critical need for understanding the complexity of pain, urging the scientific and clinical community to move beyond reductionist perspectives and consider the multifaceted nature of this phenomenon.

Evidence for Spinozan "Unbelieving" in the Right Inferior Prefrontal Cortex

Humans can think about possible states of the world without believing in them, an important capacity for high-level cognition. Here, we use fMRI and a novel "shell game" task to test two competing theories about the nature of belief and its neural basis. According to the Cartesian theory, information is first understood, then assessed for veracity, and ultimately encoded as either believed or not believed. According to the Spinozan theory, comprehension entails belief by default, such that understanding without believing requires an additional process of "unbelieving." Participants (n = 70) were experimentally induced to have beliefs, desires, or mere thoughts about hidden states of the shell game (e.g., believing that the dog is hidden in the upper right corner). That is, participants were induced to have specific "propositional attitudes" toward specific "propositions" in a controlled way. Consistent with the Spinozan theory, we found that thinking about a proposition without believing it is associated with increased activation of the right inferior frontal gyrus. This was true whether the hidden state was desired by the participant (because of reward) or merely thought about. These findings are consistent with a version of the Spinozan theory whereby unbelieving is an inhibitory control process. We consider potential implications of these results for the phenomena of delusional belief and wishful thinking.

Clinical presentation and neural correlates of stroke-associated spatial delusions

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE

Incongruent beliefs about self-localization in space markedly disturb patients' behavior. Spatial delusions, or reduplicative paramnesias, are characterized by a firm conviction of place reduplication, transformation, or mislocation. Evidence suggests they are frequent after right hemisphere lesions, but comprehensive information about their clinical features is lacking.

METHODS

We prospectively screened 504 acute right-hemisphere stroke patients for the presence of spatial delusions. Their behavioral and clinical features were systematically assessed. Then, we analyzed the correlation of their duration with the magnitude of structural disruption of belief-associated functional networks. Finally, we described the syndrome subtypes and evaluated whether the clinical categorization would be predicted by the structural disruption of familiarity-associated functional networks using an unsupervised k-means clustering algorithm.

RESULTS

Sixty patients with spatial delusions were identified and fully characterized. Most (93%) localized the misidentified places closer to home than the hospital. The median time duration was 3 days (interquartile range = 1-7 days), and it was moderately correlated with the magnitude of structural-functional decoupling of belief-associated functional networks (r = 0.39, p = 0.02; beta coefficient regressing for lesion volume = 3.18, p = 0.04). Each clinical subtype had characteristic response patterns, which were reported, and representative examples were provided. Clustering based on structural disruption of familiarity- and unfamiliarity-associated functional networks poorly matched the clinical categorization (lesion: Rand index = 0.47; structural disconnection: Rand index = 0.51).

CONCLUSIONS

The systematic characterization of the peculiar clinical features of stroke-associated spatial delusions may improve the syndrome diagnosis and clinical approaches. The novel evidence about their neural correlates fosters the clarification of the pathophysiology of delusional misidentifications.

Mindfulness in the focus of the neurosciences - The contribution of neuroimaging to the understanding of mindfulness

BACKGROUND

Mindfulness affects human levels of experience by facilitating the immediate and impartial perception of phenomena, including sensory stimulation, emotions, and thoughts. Mindfulness is now a focus of neuroimaging, since technical and methodological developments in magnetic resonance imaging have made it possible to observe subjects performing mindfulness tasks.

OBJECTIVE

We set out to describe the association between mental processes and characteristics of mindfulness, including their specific cerebral patterns, as shown in structural and functional neuroimaging studies.

METHODS

We searched the MEDLINE databank of references and abstracts on life sciences and biomedical topics via PubMed using the keywords: "mindfulness," "focused attention (FA)," "open monitoring (OM)," "mind wandering," "emotional regulation," "magnetic resonance imaging (MRI)" and "default mode network (DMN)." This review extracted phenomenological experiences across populations with varying degrees of mindfulness training and correlated these experiences with structural and functional neuroimaging patterns. Our goal was to describe how mindful behavior was processed by the constituents of the default mode network during specific tasks.

RESULTS AND CONCLUSIONS

Depending on the research paradigm employed to explore mindfulness, investigations of function that used fMRI exhibited distinct activation patterns and functional connectivities. Basic to mindfulness is a long-term process of learning to use meditation techniques. Meditators progress from voluntary control of emotions and subjective preferences to emotional regulation and impartial awareness of phenomena. As their ability to monitor perception and behavior, a metacognitive skill, improves, mindfulness increases self-specifying thoughts governed by the experiential phenomenological self and reduces self-relational thoughts of the narrative self. The degree of mindfulness (ratio of self-specifying to self-relational thoughts) may affect other mental processes, e.g., awareness, working memory, mind wandering and belief formation. Mindfulness prevents habituation and the constant assumptions associated with mindlessness. Self-specifying thinking during mindfulness and self-relational thinking in the narrative self relies on the default mode network. The main constituents of this network are the dorsal and medial prefrontal cortex, and posterior cingulate cortex. These midline structures are antagonistic to self-specifying and self-relational processes, since the predominant process determines their differential involvement. Functional and brain volume changes indicate brain plasticity, mediated by mental training over the long-term.

The preference for belief, issue polarization, and echo chambers

Some common explanations of issue polarization and echo chambers rely on social or cognitive mechanisms of exclusion. Accordingly, suggested interventions like "be more open-minded" target these mechanisms: avoid epistemic bubbles and don't discount contrary information. Contrary to such explanations, we show how a much weaker mechanism-the preference for belief-can produce issue polarization in epistemic communities with little to no mechanisms of exclusion. We present a network model (with an empirically-validated structure) that demonstrates how a dynamic interaction between the preference for belief and common structures of epistemic communities can turn very small unequal distributions of initial beliefs into full-blown polarization. This points to a different class of explanations, one that emphasizes the importance of the initial spread of information. We also show how our model complements extant explanations by including a version of biased assimilation and motivated reasoning-cognitive mechanisms of exclusion. We find that mechanisms of exclusion can exacerbate issue polarization, but may not be the ultimate root of it. Hence, the recommended interventions suggested by extant literature is expected to be limited and the problem of issue polarization to be even more intractable.

Spiritual care for the management of Parkinson's disease: Where we are and how far can we go

An increasing number of studies have investigated the neural networks and brain regions activated by different aspects of religious faith or spiritual practice. The extent to which religiousness and spirituality are dependent on the integrity of neural circuits is a question unique to neurological illnesses. Several studies have reported that neural networks and brain areas represent the various components of religious faith or spiritual activity in recent decades. In addition to research in healthy people, another strategy is to observe if neurological abnormalities caused by stroke, tumour, brain damage, or degenerative sickness are accompanied by an alteration in religiosity or spirituality. Similarly, Parkinson's disease (PD), an ailment characterized by dopaminergic neuron malfunction, has been utilized to explore the role of dopaminergic networks in the practice, experience, and maintenance of religious or spiritual beliefs. Case-control and priming studies have demonstrated a decline in spirituality and religion in people with PD due to dopaminergic degeneration. These studies could not adequately control for confounding variables and lacked methodological rigour. Using qualitative and quantitative assessments, a mixed-method approach might shed additional light on putative religious beliefs alterations in PD. In the current review paper, we discussed the recent research on the impact of PD on spiritual beliefs and spirituality.

EXPRESS: Contextual uncertainty of visual scene modulates object-based attention

Contextual information involves invariant properties that are critical in selective attention. There is no direct evidence showing the effect of contextual information on object-based selective attention. The current study aimed to investigate the role of contextual uncertainty on object-based effect using a flanker task and to clarify the contradictory results obtained in previous studies. Herein, contextual uncertainty specifically referred to the configurations of the stimuli presented randomly as vertical or horizontal displays (high contextual uncertainty) that was reduced by showing consistent configurations within a block, via implicit learning of configuration (low contextual uncertainty). In Experiment 1, the object-based effect was observed under the high uncertainty condition and disappeared under the low uncertainty condition, demonstrating that contextual uncertainty modulated object-based attention. Experiment 2 provided explicit knowledge of the configural orientations, which can be utilised to sufficiently guide subsequent perception with increase in cueing interval, and therefore, affected contextual uncertainty. Relative to a short cueing interval, the long cueing interval enabled the participants to utilise the contextual knowledge for guiding visual attention and reducing uncertainty. Consistent with the finding in Experiment 1, the explicit manipulation of contextual uncertainty affected the object-based effect. The results proved that contextual uncertainty played an important role in prioritisation in object-based attentional selection. The mechanism of the interplay between contextual uncertainty and object-based attention was discussed.

Cultural differences in neurocognitive mechanisms underlying believing

Believing as a fundamental mental process influences other cognitive/affective processes and behavior. However, it is unclear whether believing engages distinct neurocognitive mechanisms in people with different cultural experiences. We addressed this issue by scanning Chinese and Danish adults using functional MRI during believing judgments on personality traits of oneself and a celebrity. Drift diffusion model analyses of behavioral performances revealed that speed/quality of information acquisition varied between believing judgments on positive and negative personality traits in Chinese but not in Danes. Chinese adopted a more conservative strategy of decision-making during celebrity- than self-believing judgments whereas an opposite pattern was observed in Danes. Non-decisional processes were longer for celebrity- than for self-believing in Danes but not in Chinese. Believing judgments activated the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) in both cultural groups but elicited stronger left anterior insular and ventral frontal activations in Chinese. Greater mPFC activity in Chinese was associated with longer duration of non-decision processes during believing-judgments, which predicted slower retrieval of self-related information in a memory test. Greater mPFC activity in Danes, however, was associated with a less degree of adopting a conservative strategy during believing judgments, which predicted faster retrieval of self-related information. Our findings highlight different neurocognitive processes engaged in believing between individuals from East Asian and Western cultures.

About Nothing, in Particular

“Nothing” is an interesting word and an even more interesting concept. The word is used frequently in many contexts without difficulty. However, a bit of probing reveals that there are many contexts in which the word can have dramatically different meanings, and the language user may be unaware of the possibility of a meaning other than the one he or she intends. It is difficult to talk about the concept coherently and hard to imagine one that more effectively illustrates the flexibility of language. This article considers its use in a variety of contexts.

Neural underpinning of a personal relationship with God and sense of control: A lesion-mapping study

A strong personal relationship with God is theoretically and empirically associated with an enhanced sense of control. While a growing body of research is focused on understanding the neural mechanisms underlying religious belief, little is known about the brain basis of the link between a personal relationship with God and sense of control. Here, we used a sample of patients with focal brain lesions (N = 84) and matched healthy controls (N = 22) to determine whether damage to the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC)-a region associated with emotionally meaningful religious experiences and with sense of control-will modulate self-reports of a personal relationship with God and sense of control. We also examined potential mediators for these associations. Voxel-based lesion symptom mapping revealed that damage to the right vmPFC resulted in a stronger personal relationship with God, and patients with damage to this region demonstrated an increased sense of control relative to patients with damage to posterior cortex and healthy controls. Moreover, the association between vmPFC damage and greater perceived sense of control was mediated by a stronger personal relationship with God. Collectively, these results suggest that a strong personal relationship with God can serve an important psychological function by affecting sense of control, with both enhanced following damage to the right vmPFC.

Impaired self-awareness after traumatic brain injury: A systematic review. Part 2. Consequences and predictors of poor self-awareness

BACKGROUND

Impaired self-awareness (ISA) has frequently been found both frequent and deleterious in patients with moderate to severe traumatic brain injury (TBI).

OBJECTIVES

This is the second of a two-part systematic review on ISA after TBI, focusing on the consequences and predictors of ISA after TBI.

METHODS

Following the PRISMA guidelines, 95 articles meeting the inclusion criteria were included; 46 were specifically related to this second part of the review.

RESULTS

Among 16 studies that investigated the effect of ISA on outcome, most (n=13) found poor self-awareness associated with poor rehabilitation, functional, social and vocational outcome and with increased burden on relatives. Multiple factors have been found associated with increased frequency of ISA. ISA was found significantly related to injury severity in 8 of 10 studies, impaired executive functions in 12 of 15 studies, and poor social cognition in 3 studies, but paradoxically inverse associations were repeatedly found between self-awareness and emotional status (11 of 12 studies). Finally, although research in the field is still scarce, ISA seems associated with a dysfunction within brain networks involving the anterior cingulate cortex, anterior insula and fronto-parietal control network.

CONCLUSIONS

ISA is a complex and multifaceted disorder associated with poor rehabilitation outcome, severe injuries, and deficits of executive functions and social cognition but has an inverse association with mood impairments.

Beliefs: A challenge in neuropsychological disorders

INTRODUCTION

Beliefs have recently been defined as the neural product of perception of objects and events in the external world and of an affirmative internal affective state reflecting personal meaning. It is, however, undetermined in which way diseases of the brain affect these integrative processes.

METHODS

Here, the formation and updating of abnormal beliefs in cerebral disorders are described.

RESULTS

It will be shown that well-defined neuropsychological syndromes resulting from brain lesions also interfere with the neural processes that enable the formation, up-dating and communication of beliefs. Similarly, in neuropsychiatric disorders abnormal and delusional beliefs appear to be caused by altered perception and/or misattribution of aversive meaning.

CONCLUSION

Given the importance of beliefs for ordinary social behaviour, abnormal beliefs are a challenge in neuropsychological disorders.

Political uncertainty moderates neural evaluation of incongruent policy positions

Uncertainty has been shown to impact political evaluation, yet the exact mechanisms by which uncertainty affects the minds of citizens remain unclear. This experiment examines the neural underpinnings of uncertainty in political evaluation using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). During fMRI, participants completed an experimental task where they evaluated policy positions attributed to hypothetical political candidates. Policy positions were either congruent or incongruent with candidates' political party affiliation and presented with varying levels of certainty. Neural activity was modelled as a function of uncertainty and incongruence. Analyses suggest that neural activity in brain regions previously implicated in affective and evaluative processing (anterior cingulate cortex, insular cortex) differed as a function of the interaction between uncertainty and incongruence, such that activation in these areas was greatest when information was both certain and incongruent, and uncertainty influenced processing differently as a function of the valence of the attached information. These findings suggest that individuals are attuned to uncertainty in the stated issue positions of politicians, and that the neural processing of this uncertainty is dependent on congruence of these positions with expectations based on political party identification. Implications for the study of emotion and politics and political cognition are discussed. This article is part of the theme issue 'The political brain: neurocognitive and computational mechanisms'.

Trust in information, political identity and the brain: an interdisciplinary fMRI study

Misinformation has triggered government inquiries and threatens the perceived legitimacy of campaign processes and electoral outcomes. A new identity polarization has arisen between Remain and Leave sympathizers in the UK Brexit debate, with associated accusations of misinformation use. Competing psychological accounts of how people come to accept and defend misinformation pit self-reinforcing motivated cognition against lack of systematic reasoning as possible explanations. We harness insights from political science, cognitive neuroscience and psychology to examine the impact of trust and identity on information processing regarding Brexit in a group of Remain identifiers. Behaviourally, participants' affective responses to Brexit-related information are affected by whether the emotional valence of the message is compatible with their beliefs on Brexit (positive/negative) but not by their trust in the source of information. However, belief in the information is significantly affected by both (dis)trust in information source and by belief compatibility with the valence of the information. Neuroimaging results confirm this pattern, identifying areas involved in judgements of the self, others and automatic processing of affectively threatening stimuli, ultimately supporting motivated cognition accounts of misinformation endorsement.

This article is part of the theme issue ‘The political brain: neurocognitive and computational mechanisms’.

Choosing to view morbid information involves reward circuitry

People often seek out stories, videos or images that detail death, violence or harm. Considering the ubiquity of this behavior, it is surprising that we know very little about the neural circuits involved in choosing negative information. Using fMRI, the present study shows that choosing intensely negative stimuli engages similar brain regions as those that support extrinsic incentives and “regular” curiosity. Participants made choices to view negative and positive images, based on negative (e.g., a soldier kicks a civilian against his head) and positive (e.g., children throw flower petals at a wedding) verbal cues. We hypothesized that the conflicting, but relatively informative act of choosing to view a negative image, resulted in stronger activation of reward circuitry as opposed to the relatively uncomplicated act of choosing to view a positive stimulus. Indeed, as preregistered, we found that choosing negative cues was associated with activation of the striatum, inferior frontal gyrus, anterior insula, and anterior cingulate cortex, both when contrasting against a passive viewing condition, and when contrasting against positive cues. These findings nuance models of decision-making, valuation and curiosity, and are an important starting point when considering the value of seeking out negative content.

God Spots in the Brain: Nine Categories of Unasked, Unanswered Questions

Neurotheology is an emerging academic discipline that examines mind-brain relationships in terms of the inter-relatedness of neuroscience, spirituality, and religion. Neurotheology originated from brain-scan studies that revealed specific correlations between certain religious thoughts and localized activated brain areas known as “God Spots.” This relatively young scholarly discipline lacks clear consensus on its definition, ideology, purpose, or prospects for future research. Of special interest is the consideration of the next steps using brain scans to develop this field of research. This review proposes nine categories of future research that could build on the foundation laid by the prior discoveries of God Spots. Specifically, this analysis identifies some sparsely addressed issues that could be usefully explored with new kinds of brain-scan studies: neural network operations, the cognitive neuroscience of prayer, biology of belief, measures of religiosity, role of the self, learning and memory, religious and secular cognitive commonalities, static and functional anatomy, and recruitment of neural processing circuitry. God Spot research is poised to move beyond observation to robust hypothesis generation and testing.

The Bayesian brain in imbalance: Medial, lateral and descending pathways in tinnitus and pain: A perspective

Tinnitus and pain share similarities in their anatomy, pathophysiology, clinical picture and treatments. Based on what is known in the pain field, a heuristic model can be proposed for the pathophysiolgy of tinnitus. This heuristic pathophysiological model suggests that pain and tinnitus are the consequence of an imbalance between two pain/tinnitus evoking pathways, i.e., a lateral sensory pathway and a medial affective pathway, both of which are not balanced anymore by a pain/noise inhibitory pathway. Mechanistically, based on the Bayesian brain concept, it can be explained by a switch occuring under influence of the rostral to dorsal anterior cingulate cortex of its prior predictions, i.e., a reference resetting, in which the pain/tinnitus state is considered as the new reference state. This reference resetting is confirmed by the nucleus accumbens as part of the reward system and maintained by connectivity changes between the nucleus accumbens and the pregenual anterior cingulate cortex. As a consequence it can be suggested to treat pain/tinnitus via reconditioning, either surgically or non-surgically. The model can also be used to develop objective measures for tinnitus and pain via supervised machine learning.

Belief formation - A driving force for brain evolution

The topic of belief has been neglected in the natural sciences for a long period of time. Recent neuroscience research in non-human primates and humans, however, has shown that beliefs are the neuropsychic product of fundamental brain processes that attribute affective meaning to concrete objects and events, enabling individual goal setting, decision making and maneuvering in the environment. With regard to the involved neural processes they can be categorized as empirical, relational, and conceptual beliefs. Empirical beliefs are about objects and relational beliefs are about events as in tool use and in interactions between subjects that develop below the level of awareness and are up-dated dynamically. Conceptual beliefs are more complex being based on narratives and participation in ritual acts. As neural processes are known to require computational space in the brain, the formation of inceasingly complex beliefs demands extra neural resources. Here, we argue that the evolution of human beliefs is related to the phylogenetic enlargement of the brain including the parietal and medial frontal cortex in humans.

The Neural Basis of Religious Cognition

Religion’s neural underpinnings have long been a topic of speculation and debate, but an emerging neuroscience of religion is beginning to clarify which regions of the brain integrate moral, ritual, and supernatural religious beliefs with functionally adaptive responses. Here, we review evidence indicating that religious cognition involves a complex interplay among the brain regions underpinning cognitive control, social reasoning, social motivations, and ideological beliefs.

Religious Belief at the Level of the Brain: Neural Correlates and Influence of Culture

This article summarizes key functional magnetic resonance imaging studies that correlate the neural substrate of religious belief and the influence of culture. I searched and updated PubMed (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed) publications until March 2018 on religious belief and related topics. Belief, whether religious or nonreligious, is associated with greater signal in the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vMPFC), a brain region important for self-representation, emotional associations, reward, and goal-driven behavior. However, religious belief, compared with nonreligious belief, registers greater signal in the precuneus, anterior insula, ventral striatum, anterior cingulate cortex, and posterior medial cortex-areas associated with governance of emotion, self-representation, and cognitive conflict. In contrast, nonreligious belief registers more signal in the left hemisphere memory networks (Harris et al. PLoS One 2009;4:e0007272). Moreover, cultural studies revealed self-judgment tasks in nonbelievers involved more the vMPFC, whereas Christians had significantly increased activation in the dorsomedial prefrontal cortex (Han et al. Soc Neurosci 2008;3:1-15). Consequently, the Christian belief of "surrendering to Christ" seemed to weaken neural coding of stimulus self-relatedness but enhanced neural activity underlying evaluative processes of self-referential stimuli. The findings suggest a transformation of the semantic autobiographical self to Christ's conceptual self.

Eight Weddings and Six Funerals: An fMRI Study on Autobiographical Memories

“Autobiographical memory” (AM) refers to remote memories from one's own life. Previous neuroimaging studies have highlighted that voluntary retrieval processes from AM involve different forms of memory and cognitive functions. Thus, a complex and widespread brain functional network has been found to support AM. The present functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study used a multivariate approach to determine whether neural activity within the AM circuit would recognize memories of real autobiographical events, and to evaluate individual differences in the recruitment of this network. Fourteen right-handed females took part in the study. During scanning, subjects were presented with sentences representing a detail of a highly emotional real event (positive or negative) and were asked to indicate whether the sentence described something that had or had not really happened to them. Group analysis showed a set of cortical areas able to discriminate the truthfulness of the recalled events: medial prefrontal cortex, posterior cingulate/retrosplenial cortex, precuneus, bilateral angular, superior frontal gyri, and early visual cortical areas. Single-subject results showed that the decoding occurred at different time points. No differences were found between recalling a positive or a negative event. Our results show that the entire AM network is engaged in monitoring the veracity of AMs. This process is not affected by the emotional valence of the experience but rather by individual differences in cognitive strategies used to retrieve AMs.

From Believing to Belief: A General Theoretical Model

Cognitive neuroscience research has begun to explore the mental processes underlying what a belief and what believing are. Recent evidence suggests that believing involves fundamental brain functions that result in meaningful probabilistic representations, called beliefs. When relatively stable, these beliefs allow for guidance of behavior in individuals and social groups. However, they are also fluid and can be modified by new relevant information, interpersonal contact, social pressure, and situational demands. We present a theoretical model of believing that can account for the formation of both empirically grounded and metaphysical beliefs.

Functional Dissociation of the Posterior and Anterior Insula in Moral Disgust

The insula is thought to be involved in disgust. However, the roles of the posterior insula (PI) and anterior insula (AI) in moral disgust have not been clearly dissociated in previous studies. In this functional magnetic resonance imaging study, the participants evaluated the degree of disgust using sentences related to mild moral violations with different types of behavioral agents (mother and stranger). The activation of the PI in response to the stranger agent was significantly higher than that in response to the mother agent. In contrast, the activation of the AI in response to the mother agent was significantly higher than that in response to the stranger agent. These data suggest a clear functional dissociation between the PI and AI in which the PI is more involved in the primary level of moral disgust than is the AI, and the AI is more involved in the secondary level of moral disgust than is the PI. Our results provide key evidence for understanding the principle of embodied cognition and particularly demonstrate that high-level moral disgust is built on more basic disgust via a mental construction approach through a process of embodied schemata.

What Makes You So Sure? Dogmatism, Fundamentalism, Analytic Thinking, Perspective Taking and Moral Concern in the Religious and Nonreligious

Better understanding the psychological factors related to certainty in one's beliefs (i.e., dogmatism) has important consequences for both individuals and social groups. Generally, beliefs can find support from at least two different routes of information processing: social/moral considerations or analytic/empirical reasoning. Here, we investigate how these two psychological constructs relate to dogmatism in two groups of individuals who preferentially draw on the former or latter sort of information when forming beliefs about the world-religious and nonreligious individuals. Across two studies and their pooled analysis, we provide evidence that although dogmatism is negatively related to analytic reasoning in both groups of individuals, it shares a divergent relationship with measures of moral concern depending on whether one identifies as religious or not. Study 1 showed that increasing levels of dogmatism were positively related to prosocial intentions among the religious and negatively related to empathic concern among the nonreligious. Study 2 replicated and extended these results by showing that perspective taking is negatively related to dogmatism in both groups, an effect which is particularly robust among the nonreligious. Study 2 also showed that religious fundamentalism was positively related to measures of moral concern among the religious. Because the current studies used a content-neutral measure to assess dogmatic certainty in one's beliefs, they have the potential to inform practices for most effectively communicating with and persuading religious and nonreligious individuals to change maladaptive behavior, even when the mode of discourse is unrelated to religious belief.

State of the Art: Novel Applications for Cortical Stimulation

OBJECTIVE

Electrical stimulation via implanted electrodes that overlie the cortex of the brain is an upcoming neurosurgical technique that was hindered for a long time by insufficient knowledge of how the brain functions in a dynamic, physiological, and pathological way, as well as by technological limitations of the implantable stimulation devices.

METHODS

This paper provides an overview of cortex stimulation via implantable devices and introduces future possibilities to improve cortex stimulation.

RESULTS

Cortex stimulation was initially used preoperatively as a technique to localize functions in the brain and only later evolved into a treatment technique. It was first used for pain, but more recently a multitude of pathologies are being targeted by cortex stimulation. These disorders are being treated by stimulating different cortical areas of the brain. Risks and complications are essentially similar to those related to deep brain stimulation and predominantly include haemorrhage, seizures, infection, and hardware failures. For cortex stimulation to fully mature, further technological development is required to predict its outcomes and improve stimulation designs. This includes the development of network science-based functional connectivity approaches, genetic analyses, development of navigated high definition transcranial alternating current stimulation, and development of pseudorandom stimulation designs for preventing habituation.

CONCLUSION

In conclusion, cortex stimulation is a nascent but very promising approach to treating a variety of diseases, but requires further technological development for predicting outcomes, such as network science based functional connectivity approaches, genetic analyses, development of navigated transcranial electrical stimulation, and development of pseudorandom stimulation designs for preventing habituation.

Modulating the neural bases of persuasion: why/how, gain/loss, and users/non-users

Designing persuasive content is challenging, in part because people can be poor predictors of their actions. Medial prefrontal cortex (MPFC) activation during message exposure reliably predicts downstream behavior, but past work has been largely atheoretical. We replicated past results on this relationship and tested two additional framing effects known to alter message receptivity. First, we examined gain- vs. loss-framed reasons for a health behavior (sunscreen use). Consistent with predictions from prospect theory, we observed greater MPFC activity to gain- vs. loss-framed messages, and this activity was associated with behavior. This relationship was stronger for those who were not previously sunscreen users. Second, building on theories of action planning, we compared neural activity during messages regarding how vs. why to enact the behavior. We observed rostral inferior parietal lobule and posterior inferior frontal gyrus activity during action planning ("how" messages), and this activity was associated with behavior; this is in contrast to the relationship between MPFC activity during the "why" (i.e., gain and loss) messages and behavior. These results reinforce that persuasion occurs in part via self-value integration-seeing value and incorporating persuasive messages into one's self-concept-and extend this work to demonstrate how message framing and action planning may influence this process.

Neural correlates of maintaining one's political beliefs in the face of counterevidence

People often discount evidence that contradicts their firmly held beliefs. However, little is known about the neural mechanisms that govern this behavior. We used neuroimaging to investigate the neural systems involved in maintaining belief in the face of counterevidence, presenting 40 liberals with arguments that contradicted their strongly held political and non-political views. Challenges to political beliefs produced increased activity in the default mode network-a set of interconnected structures associated with self-representation and disengagement from the external world. Trials with greater belief resistance showed increased response in the dorsomedial prefrontal cortex and decreased activity in the orbitofrontal cortex. We also found that participants who changed their minds more showed less BOLD signal in the insula and the amygdala when evaluating counterevidence. These results highlight the role of emotion in belief-change resistance and offer insight into the neural systems involved in belief maintenance, motivated reasoning, and related phenomena.

Reward, salience, and attentional networks are activated by religious experience in devout Mormons

High-level cognitive and emotional experience arises from brain activity, but the specific brain substrates for religious and spiritual euphoria remain unclear. We demonstrate using functional magnetic resonance imaging scans in 19 devout Mormons that a recognizable feeling central to their devotional practice was reproducibly associated with activation in nucleus accumbens, ventromedial prefrontal cortex, and frontal attentional regions. Nucleus accumbens activation preceded peak spiritual feelings by 1–3 s and was replicated in four separate tasks. Attentional activation in the anterior cingulate and frontal eye fields was greater in the right hemisphere. The association of abstract ideas and brain reward circuitry may interact with frontal attentional and emotive salience processing, suggesting a mechanism whereby doctrinal concepts may come to be intrinsically rewarding and motivate behavior in religious individuals.

Allostasis in health and food addiction

Homeostasis is the basis of modern medicine and allostasis, a further elaboration of homeostasis, has been defined as stability through change, which was later modified to predictive reference resetting. It has been suggested that pleasure is related to salience (behavioral relevance), and withdrawal has been linked to allostasis in addictive types. The question arises how the clinical and neural signatures of pleasure, salience, allostasis and withdrawal relate, both in a non-addicted and addicted state. Resting state EEGs were performed in 66 people, involving a food-addicted obese group, a non-food addicted obese group and a lean control group. Correlation analyses were performed on behavioral data, and correlation, comparative and conjunction analyses were performed to extract electrophysiological relationships between pleasure, salience, allostasis and withdrawal. Pleasure/liking seems to be the phenomenological expression that enough salient stimuli are obtained, and withdrawal can be seen as a motivational incentive because due to allostatic reference resetting, more stimuli are required. In addition, in contrast to non-addiction, a pathological, non-adaptive salience attached to food results in withdrawal mediated through persistent allostatic reference resetting.

Processes of believing: Where do they come from? What are they good for?

Despite the long scholarly discourse in Western theology and philosophy on religion, spirituality, and faith, explanations of what a belief and what believing is are still lacking. Recently, cognitive neuroscience research addressed the human capacity of believing. We present evidence suggesting that believing is a human brain function which results in probabilistic representations with attributes of personal meaning and value and thereby guides individuals’ behavior. We propose that the same mental processes operating on narratives and rituals constitute belief systems in individuals and social groups. Our theoretical model of believing is suited to account for secular and non-secular belief formation.

Processes of believing: Where do they come from? What are they good for?

Despite the long scholarly discourse in Western theology and philosophy on religion, spirituality, and faith, explanations of what a belief and what believing is are still lacking. Recently, cognitive neuroscience research addressed the human capacity of believing. We present evidence suggesting that believing is a human brain function which results in probabilistic representations with attributes of personal meaning and value and thereby guides individuals' behavior. We propose that the same mental processes operating on narratives and rituals constitute belief systems in individuals and social groups. Our theoretical model of believing is suited to account for secular and non-secular belief formation.

Anterior Cingulate Implant for Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder

BACKGROUND

Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) is a brain disorder with a lifetime prevalence of 2.3%, causing severe functional impairment as a result of anxiety and distress, persistent and repetitive, unwanted, intrusive thoughts (obsessions), and repetitive ritualized behavior (compulsions). Approximately 40%-60% of patients with OCD fail to satisfactorily respond to standard treatments. Intractable OCD has been treated by anterior capsulotomy and cingulotomy, but more recently, neurostimulation approaches have become more popular because of their reversibility.

OBJECTIVE

Implants for OCD are commonly being used, targeting the anterior limb of the internal capsula or the nucleus accumbens, but an implant on the anterior cingulate cortex has never been reported.

METHODS

We describe a patient who was primarily treated for alcohol addiction, first with transcranial magnetic stimulation, then by implantation of 2 electrodes overlying the rostrodorsal part of the anterior cingulate cortex bilaterally.

RESULTS

Her alcohol addiction developed as she was relief drinking to self-treat her OCD, anxiety, and depression. After the surgical implant, she underwent placebo stimulation followed by real stimulation of the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex, which dramatically improved her OCD symptoms (decrease of 65.5% on the Yale-Brown Obsessive Compulsive Drinking Scale) as well as her alcohol craving (decrease of 87.5%) after 36 weeks of treatment. Although there were improvements in all the scores, there was only a modest reduction in the patient's weekly alcohol consumption (from 50 units to 32 units).

CONCLUSIONS

Based on these preliminary positive results we propose to further study the possible beneficial effect of anterior cingulate cortex stimulation for intractable OCD.

Deafferentation-based pathophysiological differences in phantom sound: Tinnitus with and without hearing loss

Tinnitus has been considered an auditory phantom percept. Recently a theoretical multiphase compensation mechanism at a cortical level has been hypothesized linking auditory deafferentation to tinnitus. This Bayesian brain model predicts that two very different kinds of tinnitus should exist, depending on the amount of hearing loss: an auditory cortex related form of tinnitus not associated with hearing loss, and a (para)hippocampal form associated with hearing loss, in which the auditory cortex might be of little relevance. In order to verify this model, resting state source analyzed EEG recordings were made in 129 tinnitus patients, and correlated to the mean hearing loss, the range of the hearing loss and the hearing loss at the tinnitus frequency. Results demonstrate that tinnitus can be linked to 2 very different mechanisms. In patients with little or no hearing loss, the tinnitus seems to be more related to auditory cortex activity, but not to (para)hippocampal memory related activity, whereas in tinnitus patients with more severe hearing loss, tinnitus seems to be related to (para)hippocampal mechanisms. Furthermore hearing loss seems to drive the communication between the auditory cortex and the parahippocampus, as measured by functional and effective connectivity.

Role of the first and second person perspective for control of behaviour: Understanding other people's facial expressions

Humans typically make probabilistic inferences about another person's affective state based on her/his bodily movements such as emotional facial expressions, emblematic gestures and whole body movements. Furthermore, humans deduce tentative predictions about the other person's intentions. Thus, the first person perspective of a subject is supplemented by the second person perspective involving theory of mind and empathy. Neuroimaging investigations have shown that the medial and lateral frontal cortex are critical nodes in the circuits underlying theory of mind, empathy, as well as intention of action. It is suggested that personal perspective taking in social interactions is paradigmatic for the capability of humans to generate probabilistic accounts of the outside world that underlie a person's control of behaviour.

Parkinson's Disease, Religion, and Spirituality

BACKGROUND

There has been increasing interest in recent decades in the interactions between disease, religious faith, and spirituality. An issue specific to neurological disorders is to what extent religiousness and spirituality depend upon the integrity of neuronal pathways.

METHODS

We review recent research that investigates the effects of Parkinson's disease (PD) on religious faith and spirituality. Few studies have addressed this issue, but these few illustrate contrasting methodological approaches that yield different conclusions.

FINDINGS

On the one hand, case-control studies have reported an apparent decrease in both religious practice and beliefs in PD with some influence of laterality of disease onset. In contrast, qualitative studies investigating religious and general coping in PD emphasize that religious faith remains important to patients.

CONCLUSIONS

Methodological pitfalls are found in both approaches. We conclude that there is little evidence to support claims of reduced spirituality and religious faith in PD. We recommend approaches to future studies that could enable a more nuanced understanding of spiritual and religious changes that might occur in PD.

The neural basis of testable and non-testable beliefs

Beliefs about the state of the world are an important influence on both normal behavior and psychopathology. However, understanding of the neural basis of belief processing remains incomplete, and several aspects of belief processing have only recently been explored. Specifically, different types of beliefs may involve fundamentally different inferential processes and thus recruit distinct brain regions. Additionally, neural processing of truth and falsity may differ from processing of certainty and uncertainty. The purpose of this study was to investigate the neural underpinnings of assessment of testable and non-testable propositions in terms of truth or falsity and the level of certainty in a belief. Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) was used to study 14 adults while they rated propositions as true or false and also rated the level of certainty in their judgments. Each proposition was classified as testable or non-testable. Testable propositions activated the DLPFC and posterior cingulate cortex, while non-testable statements activated areas including inferior frontal gyrus, superior temporal gyrus, and an anterior region of the superior frontal gyrus. No areas were more active when a proposition was accepted, while the dorsal anterior cingulate was activated when a proposition was rejected. Regardless of whether a proposition was testable or not, certainty that the proposition was true or false activated a common network of regions including the medial prefrontal cortex, caudate, posterior cingulate, and a region of middle temporal gyrus near the temporo-parietal junction. Certainty in the truth or falsity of a non-testable proposition (a strong belief without empirical evidence) activated the insula. The results suggest that different brain regions contribute to the assessment of propositions based on the type of content, while a common network may mediate the influence of beliefs on motivation and behavior based on the level of certainty in the belief.

Imagine no religion: Heretical disgust, anger and the symbolic purity of mind

Immoral actions, including physical/sexual (e.g., incest) and social (e.g., unfairness) taboos, are often described as disgusting. But what about immoral thoughts, more specifically, thoughts that violate religious beliefs? Do heretical thoughts taint the purity of mind? The present research examined heretical disgust using self-report measures and facial electromyography. Religious thought violations consistently elicited both self-reported disgust and anger. Feelings of disgust also predicted harsh moral judgement, independent of anger, and were mediated by feelings of "contamination". However, religious thought violations were not associated with a disgust facial expression (i.e., levator labii muscle activity) that was elicited by physically disgusting stimuli. We conclude that people (especially more religious people) do feel disgust in response to heretical thoughts that is meaningfully distinct from anger as a moral emotion. However, heretical disgust is not embodied in a physical disgust response. Rather, disgust has a symbolic moral value that marks heretical thoughts as harmful and aversive.

A non-linear dynamical approach to belief revision in cognitive behavioral therapy

Belief revision is the key change mechanism underlying the psychological intervention known as cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT). It both motivates and reinforces new behavior. In this review we analyze and apply a novel approach to this process based on AGM theory of belief revision, named after its proponents, Carlos Alchourrón, Peter Gärdenfors and David Makinson. AGM is a set-theoretical model. We reconceptualize it as describing a non-linear, dynamical system that occurs within a semantic space, which can be represented as a phase plane comprising all of the brain's attentional, cognitive, affective and physiological resources. Triggering events, such as anxiety-producing or depressing situations in the real world, or their imaginal equivalents, mobilize these assets so they converge on an equilibrium point. A preference function then evaluates and integrates evidentiary data associated with individual beliefs, selecting some of them and comprising them into a belief set, which is a metastable state. Belief sets evolve in time from one metastable state to another. In the phase space, this evolution creates a heteroclinic channel. AGM regulates this process and characterizes the outcome at each equilibrium point. Its objective is to define the necessary and sufficient conditions for belief revision by simultaneously minimizing the set of new beliefs that have to be adopted, and the set of old beliefs that have to be discarded or reformulated. Using AGM, belief revision can be modeled using three (and only three) fundamental syntactical operations performed on belief sets, which are expansion; revision; and contraction. Expansion is like adding a new belief without changing any old ones. Revision is like adding a new belief and changing old, inconsistent ones. Contraction is like changing an old belief without adding any new ones. We provide operationalized examples of this process in action.

Linking neuroscientific research on decision making to the educational context of novice students assigned to a multiple-choice scientific task involving common misconceptions about electrical circuits

Functional magnetic resonance imaging was used to identify the brain-based mechanisms of uncertainty and certainty associated with answers to multiple-choice questions involving common misconceptions about electric circuits. Twenty-two scientifically novice participants (humanities and arts college students) were asked, in an fMRI study, whether or not they thought the light bulbs in images presenting electric circuits were lighted up correctly, and if they were certain or uncertain of their answers. When participants reported that they were unsure of their responses, analyses revealed significant activations in brain areas typically involved in uncertainty (anterior cingulate cortex, anterior insula cortex, and superior/dorsomedial frontal cortex) and in the left middle/superior temporal lobe. Certainty was associated with large bilateral activations in the occipital and parietal regions usually involved in visuospatial processing. Correct-and-certain answers were associated with activations that suggest a stronger mobilization of visual attention resources when compared to incorrect-and-certain answers. These findings provide insights into brain-based mechanisms of uncertainty that are activated when common misconceptions, identified as such by science education research literature, interfere in decision making in a school-like task. We also discuss the implications of these results from an educational perspective.

Cooccurrence des croyances religieuses, superstitieuses et de type délirant

Il existe peu de données expérimentales faisant le lien entre les croyances religieuses, superstitieuses et de type délirant, malgré que ces croyances aient un point commun : le fait qu’elles reposent sur peu ou pas de preuves. Ceci suggère qu’elles pourraient partager un mécanisme cognitif commun et donc être observées chez les mêmes individus. Pour tester cette dernière hypothèse, nous avons fait remplir des questionnaires d’idées de type délirant, de religiosité, et de superstition à 95 participants sans antécédents psychiatriques. Globalement, les croyances superstitieuses corrèlent positivement avec les croyances religieuses et les idées de type délirant et tendent donc à apparaître chez les mêmes individus. Cependant, les idées de type délirant ne sont que partiellement liées aux croyances religieuses. La relation entre les idées de type délirant et la religiosité demeure ambiguë.

Single trial decoding of belief decision making from EEG and fMRI data using independent components features

The complex task of assessing the veracity of a statement is thought to activate uniquely distributed brain regions based on whether a subject believes or disbelieves a given assertion. In the current work, we present parallel machine learning methods for predicting a subject's decision response to a given propositional statement based on independent component (IC) features derived from EEG and fMRI data. Our results demonstrate that IC features outperformed features derived from event related spectral perturbations derived from any single spectral band, yet were similar to accuracy across all spectral bands combined. We compared our diagnostic IC spatial maps with our conventional general linear model (GLM) results, and found that informative ICs had significant spatial overlap with our GLM results, yet also revealed unique regions like amygdala that were not statistically significant in GLM analyses. Overall, these results suggest that ICs may yield a parsimonious feature set that can be used along with a decision tree structure for interpretation of features used in classifying complex cognitive processes such as belief and disbelief across both fMRI and EEG neuroimaging modalities.