Associations of religious behavior and experiences with extent of regional atrophy in the orbitofrontal cortex during older adulthood

The relationship between individual differences in gray matter volume and religiosity and mystical experiences: A preregistered voxel-based morphometry study

The neural substrates of religious belief and experience are an intriguing though contentious topic. Here, we had the unique opportunity to establish the relation between validated measures of religiosity and gray matter volume in a large sample of participants (N = 211). In this registered report, we conducted a confirmatory voxel-based morphometry analysis to test three central hypotheses regarding the relationship between religiosity and mystical experiences and gray matter volume. The preregisterered hypotheses, analysis plan, preprocessing and analysis code and statistical brain maps are all available from online repositories. By using a region-of-interest analysis, we found no evidence that religiosity is associated with a reduced volume of the orbito-frontal cortex and changes in the structure of the bilateral inferior parietal lobes. Neither did we find support for the notion that mystical experiences are associated with a reduced volume of the hippocampus, the right middle temporal gyrus or with the inferior parietal lobes. A whole-brain analysis furthermore indicated that no structural brain differences were found in association with religiosity and mystical experiences. We believe that the search for the neural correlates of religious beliefs and experiences should therefore shift focus from studying structural brain differences to a functional and multivariate approach.

Experiential and Doctrinal Religious Knowledge Categorization in Parkinson's Disease: Behavioral and Brain Correlates

Recent studies suggest changes in religious cognition in a subgroup of patients with Parkinson's disease (PD e.g., Butler et al., 2011). It is unclear whether this deficit extends to both doctrinal and experiential categorization forms of religious cognition. Kapogiannis et al. (2009b) dissociated experiential and doctrinal religious knowledge to different neural networks using fMRI. We examined Kapogiannis' dissociation against the background of PD side of onset (LOPD, ROPD), assessing performance both On- and Off-medication. In the behavioral portion of the study, we used a statement classification task in combination with scholar derived test sets for experiential and doctrinal religious knowledge categorization in conjunction with neuropsychological measures. In the neuroimaging portion of the study, we expanded on Kapogiannis' study by examining the same networks in PD. The behavioral data revealed that all groups rated (categorized) the scholar derived tests of experiential and doctrinal significantly differently than the scholars. All groups, including the scholars, classified more phrases as doctrinal than experiential. Religious cognition differed in the PD groups: those with PD Off-medication and LOPD Off-medication comprehended scholar defined experiential phrases with more difficulty, making them more likely to be classified as mixed or doctrinal. This was in contrast to the subjective frequency of classification of phrases as experiential paired with a cognitive decline in PD Off-medication; whereas PD On-medication showed a positive correlation with cognitive state and subjective doctrinal classification. For ROPD, cognitive state was associated with subjective experiential and doctrinal frequency of classification. With more intact intellect, there was a greater likelihood of classifying phrases subjectively as mixed, and the converse for experiential. Furthermore, religiosity negatively predicted subjective doctrinal frequency in LOPD, with the converse in ROPD. In fcMRI in PD, we found resting state functional intrinsic connectivity of reward networks associated with classification of statements using seeds in bilateral nucleus accumbens in PD. For experiential regressors, there was a negative correlation in bilateral frontal lobes paired with a positive correlation in left occipital visual areas (BAs 17, 18). For doctrinal regressors, there was a positive correlation in right BA 20.