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Kieckhaefer C, Schilbach L, Bzdok D. Social belonging: brain structure and function is linked to membership in sports teams, religious groups, and social clubs. Cereb Cortex 2023; 33:4405-4420. [PMID: 36161309 PMCID: PMC10110433 DOI: 10.1093/cercor/bhac351] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/08/2022] [Revised: 07/08/2022] [Accepted: 07/08/2022] [Indexed: 11/12/2022] Open
Abstract
Human behavior across the life span is driven by the psychological need to belong, right from kindergarten to bingo nights. Being part of social groups constitutes a backbone for communal life and confers many benefits for the physical and mental health. Capitalizing on the neuroimaging and behavioral data from ∼40,000 participants from the UK Biobank population cohort, we used structural and functional analyses to explore how social participation is reflected in the human brain. Across 3 different types of social groups, structural analyses point toward the variance in ventromedial prefrontal cortex, fusiform gyrus, and anterior cingulate cortex as structural substrates tightly linked to social participation. Functional connectivity analyses not only emphasized the importance of default mode and limbic network but also showed differences for sports teams and religious groups as compared to social clubs. Taken together, our findings establish the structural and functional integrity of the default mode network as a neural signature of social belonging.
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Affiliation(s)
- Carolin Kieckhaefer
- LVR Klinikum Düsseldorf, Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, Heinrich-Heine-University Düsseldorf, Bergische Landstraße 2, 40629 Düsseldorf, Germany
| | - Leonhard Schilbach
- LVR Klinikum Düsseldorf, Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, Heinrich-Heine-University Düsseldorf, Bergische Landstraße 2, 40629 Düsseldorf, Germany
- Medical Faculty, Ludwig Maximilians University, Bavariaring 19, 80336 Munich, Germany
| | - Danilo Bzdok
- McConnell Brain Imaging Centre, Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, Montreal Neurological Institute (MNI), McGill University, 3801 rue University, Montreal, Quebec H3A 2B4, Canada
- Department of Biomedical Engineering, Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, McGill University, 3775 rue University, Montreal, Quebec H3A 2B4, Canada
- Mila - Quebec Artificial Intelligence Institute, 6666 rue Saint-Urbain, Montreal, Quebec H2S 3H1, Canada
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Brooks SJ, Tian L, Parks SM, Stamoulis C. Parental religiosity is associated with changes in youth functional network organization and cognitive performance in early adolescence. Sci Rep 2022; 12:17305. [PMID: 36243789 PMCID: PMC9569366 DOI: 10.1038/s41598-022-22299-6] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/16/2022] [Accepted: 10/12/2022] [Indexed: 01/10/2023] Open
Abstract
Parental religious beliefs and practices (religiosity) may have profound effects on youth, especially in neurodevelopmentally complex periods such as adolescence. In n = 5566 children (median age = 120.0 months; 52.1% females; 71.2% with religious affiliation) from the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development study, relationships between parental religiosity and non-religious beliefs on family values (data on youth beliefs were not available), topological properties of youth resting-state brain networks, and executive function, inhibitory control, and cognitive flexibility were investigated. Lower caregiver education and family income were associated with stronger parental beliefs (p < 0.01). Strength of both belief types was correlated with lower efficiency, community structure, and robustness of frontoparietal control, temporoparietal, and dorsal attention networks (p < 0.05), and lower Matrix Reasoning scores. Stronger religious beliefs were negatively associated (directly and indirectly) with multiscale properties of salience and default-mode networks, and lower Flanker and Dimensional Card Sort scores, but positively associated with properties of the precuneus. Overall, these effects were small (Cohen's d ~ 0.2 to ~ 0.4). Overlapping neuromodulatory and cognitive effects of parental beliefs suggest that early adolescents may perceive religious beliefs partly as context-independent rules on expected behavior. However, religious beliefs may also differentially affect cognitive flexibility, attention, and inhibitory control and their neural substrates.
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Affiliation(s)
- Skylar J. Brooks
- grid.2515.30000 0004 0378 8438Division of Adolescent Medicine, Department of Pediatrics, Boston Children’s Hospital, Boston, MA USA
| | - Luyao Tian
- grid.2515.30000 0004 0378 8438Division of Adolescent Medicine, Department of Pediatrics, Boston Children’s Hospital, Boston, MA USA ,Massachusetts Institution of Technology, Cambridge, MA USA
| | - Sean M. Parks
- grid.2515.30000 0004 0378 8438Division of Adolescent Medicine, Department of Pediatrics, Boston Children’s Hospital, Boston, MA USA ,Massachusetts Institution of Technology, Cambridge, MA USA
| | - Catherine Stamoulis
- Massachusetts Institution of Technology, Cambridge, MA USA ,grid.38142.3c000000041936754XHarvard Medical School, Boston, MA USA ,grid.2515.30000 0004 0378 8438Department of Pediatrics, Boston Children’s Hospital, 300 Longwood Avenue, Boston, MA 02115 USA
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Miller L, Wickramaratne P, Hao X, McClintock CH, Pan L, Svob C, Weissman MM. Altruism and "love of neighbor" offer neuroanatomical protection against depression. Psychiatry Res Neuroimaging 2021; 315:111326. [PMID: 34265626 PMCID: PMC8672211 DOI: 10.1016/j.pscychresns.2021.111326] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Submit a Manuscript] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/11/2021] [Revised: 06/28/2021] [Accepted: 06/29/2021] [Indexed: 11/17/2022]
Abstract
We prospectively investigate protective benefits against depression of cortical thickness across nine regions of a Ventral Frontotemporal Network (VFTN), previously associated with spiritual experience. Seventy-two participants at high and low risk for depression (Mean age 41 years; 22-63 years; 40 high risk, 32 low risk) were drawn from a three-generation, thirty-eight year study. FreeSurfer estimated cortical thickness over anatomical MRIs of the brain (Year 30) for each of the nine ROIs. Depression (MDD with SAD-L; symptoms with PHQ; Years 30 and 38) and spirituality (self-report on five phenotypes; Year 35), respectively, were associated with the weighted average of nine regions of interest. VFTN thickness was: 1) positively associated (p<0.01) with two of five spiritual phenotypes, altruism and love of neighbor, interconnectedness at a trend level, but neither commitment nor practice, 2) inversely associated with a diagnosis of MDD (SADS-L Year 30, for any MDD in the past ten years), and 3) prospectively neuroanatomically protective against depressive symptoms (PHQ-9 Year 38) for those at high familial risk.
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Affiliation(s)
- Lisa Miller
- Spirituality Mind Body Institute, Clinical Psychology Program, Teachers College, Columbia University, New York City, USA.
| | - Priya Wickramaratne
- Department of Psychiatry, Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons, Columbia University, New York City, USA; Division of Translational Epidemiology, New York State Psychiatric Institute, New York City, USA
| | - Xuejun Hao
- Department of Psychiatry, Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons, Columbia University, New York City, USA; Division of Translational Epidemiology, New York State Psychiatric Institute, New York City, USA
| | - Clayton H McClintock
- Spirituality Mind Body Institute, Clinical Psychology Program, Teachers College, Columbia University, New York City, USA; Sierra Pacific MIRECC, San Francisco VA Health Care System, San Francisco, USA; Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, University of California San Francisco, San Francisco, USA
| | - Lifang Pan
- Department of Psychiatry, Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons, Columbia University, New York City, USA; Division of Translational Epidemiology, New York State Psychiatric Institute, New York City, USA
| | - Connie Svob
- Department of Psychiatry, Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons, Columbia University, New York City, USA; Division of Translational Epidemiology, New York State Psychiatric Institute, New York City, USA
| | - Myrna M Weissman
- Department of Psychiatry, Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons, Columbia University, New York City, USA; Division of Translational Epidemiology, New York State Psychiatric Institute, New York City, USA; Department of Epidemiology, Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University, New York City, USA
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Snoek L, van der Miesen MM, Beemsterboer T, van der Leij A, Eigenhuis A, Steven Scholte H. The Amsterdam Open MRI Collection, a set of multimodal MRI datasets for individual difference analyses. Sci Data 2021; 8:85. [PMID: 33741990 PMCID: PMC7979787 DOI: 10.1038/s41597-021-00870-6] [Citation(s) in RCA: 42] [Impact Index Per Article: 14.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/04/2020] [Accepted: 02/18/2021] [Indexed: 02/08/2023] Open
Abstract
We present the Amsterdam Open MRI Collection (AOMIC): three datasets with multimodal (3 T) MRI data including structural (T1-weighted), diffusion-weighted, and (resting-state and task-based) functional BOLD MRI data, as well as detailed demographics and psychometric variables from a large set of healthy participants (N = 928, N = 226, and N = 216). Notably, task-based fMRI was collected during various robust paradigms (targeting naturalistic vision, emotion perception, working memory, face perception, cognitive conflict and control, and response inhibition) for which extensively annotated event-files are available. For each dataset and data modality, we provide the data in both raw and preprocessed form (both compliant with the Brain Imaging Data Structure), which were subjected to extensive (automated and manual) quality control. All data is publicly available from the OpenNeuro data sharing platform.
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Affiliation(s)
- Lukas Snoek
- grid.7177.60000000084992262University of Amsterdam, Department of Psychology, Amsterdam, The Netherlands ,grid.458380.20000 0004 0368 8664Spinoza Centre for Neuroimaging, location Roeterseilandcampus, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
| | - Maite M. van der Miesen
- grid.7177.60000000084992262University of Amsterdam, Department of Psychology, Amsterdam, The Netherlands ,grid.5012.60000 0001 0481 6099Present Address: Maastricht University, School for Mental Health and Neuroscience, Department of Anesthesiology, Maastricht, The Netherlands
| | - Tinka Beemsterboer
- grid.7177.60000000084992262University of Amsterdam, Department of Psychology, Amsterdam, The Netherlands ,grid.458380.20000 0004 0368 8664Spinoza Centre for Neuroimaging, location Roeterseilandcampus, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
| | - Andries van der Leij
- grid.7177.60000000084992262University of Amsterdam, Department of Psychology, Amsterdam, The Netherlands ,Present Address: Brainsfirst BV, Amsterdam, The Netherlands ,Neurensics BV, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
| | - Annemarie Eigenhuis
- grid.7177.60000000084992262University of Amsterdam, Department of Psychology, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
| | - H. Steven Scholte
- grid.7177.60000000084992262University of Amsterdam, Department of Psychology, Amsterdam, The Netherlands ,grid.458380.20000 0004 0368 8664Spinoza Centre for Neuroimaging, location Roeterseilandcampus, Amsterdam, The Netherlands ,Neurensics BV, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
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Abstract
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.
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Hoogeveen S, Snoek L, van Elk M. Religious belief and cognitive conflict sensitivity: A preregistered fMRI study. Cortex 2020; 129:247-265. [PMID: 32535377 DOI: 10.1016/j.cortex.2020.04.011] [Citation(s) in RCA: 5] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/08/2020] [Revised: 03/23/2020] [Accepted: 04/03/2020] [Indexed: 12/16/2022]
Abstract
In the current preregistered fMRI study, we investigated the relationship between religiosity and behavioral and neural mechanisms of conflict processing, as a conceptual replication of the study by Inzlicht et al., (2009). Participants (N=193) performed a gender-Stroop task and afterwards completed standardized measures to assess their religiosity. As expected, the task induced cognitive conflict at the behavioral level and at a neural level this was reflected in increased activity in the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC). However, individual differences in religiosity were not related to performance on the Stroop task as measured in accuracy and interference effects, nor to neural markers of response conflict (correct responses vs. errors) or informational conflict (congruent vs. incongruent stimuli). Overall, we obtained moderate to strong evidence in favor of the null hypotheses that religiosity is unrelated to cognitive conflict sensitivity. We discuss the implications for the neuroscience of religion and emphasize the importance of designing studies that more directly implicate religious concepts and behaviors in an ecologically valid manner.
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Affiliation(s)
- Suzanne Hoogeveen
- University of Amsterdam, Department of Social Psychology, 1001, NK Amsterdam, the Netherlands.
| | - Lukas Snoek
- University of Amsterdam, Department of Brain and Cognition, 1001, NK Amsterdam, the Netherlands.
| | - Michiel van Elk
- University of Amsterdam, Department of Social Psychology, 1001, NK Amsterdam, the Netherlands.
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van Elk M, Snoek L. The relationship between individual differences in gray matter volume and religiosity and mystical experiences: A preregistered voxel-based morphometry study. Eur J Neurosci 2020; 51:850-865. [PMID: 31465601 PMCID: PMC7079225 DOI: 10.1111/ejn.14563] [Citation(s) in RCA: 11] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/03/2019] [Revised: 08/18/2019] [Accepted: 08/27/2019] [Indexed: 01/03/2023]
Abstract
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.
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Affiliation(s)
- Michiel van Elk
- Department of PsychologyUniversity of AmsterdamAmsterdamThe Netherlands
- Amsterdam Brain and Cognition CenterUniversity of AmsterdamAmsterdamThe Netherlands
| | - Lukas Snoek
- Department of PsychologyUniversity of AmsterdamAmsterdamThe Netherlands
- Amsterdam Brain and Cognition CenterUniversity of AmsterdamAmsterdamThe Netherlands
- Spinoza Center for NeuroimagingRoyal Netherlands Academy of Arts and SciencesAmsterdamThe Netherlands
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