ArticleFrontiers in human neuroscience2024
Advances in brain and religion studies: a review and synthesis of recent representative studies.
Article in Frontiers in human neuroscience, 2024. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 4 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
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Who cites it
4 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- The Neuroscience of Religious and Spiritual Practices: A Systematic Review of Neurotheological Evidence.Brain and behavior · 2026Pooled it
- Exploring the Neural Pathways of Faith: A Review and Case Study on Hyperreligiosity in Epilepsy.NeuroSci · 2026Review
- The experiential self state as affective salience: a dual-self states framework for consciousness and self-transcendence.Neuroscience of consciousness · 2026Article
- Editorial: Spirituality and religion: implications for mental health.Frontiers in psychology · 2025Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
2 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
We review and synthesize recent religion and brain studies and find that at a broad network neuroscience level, religious/spiritual experiences (RSEs) appear to depend crucially upon interactions between the default mode network (DMN), the frontoparietal network (FPN), and the salience network (SN). We see this general result as broadly consistent with Menon's et al. "Triple Network or Tripartite Model" (TPM) of neuropsychiatric function/dysfunction. A TPM cycling model is here offered to account for details of neural bases of an array of RSE phenomena including ecstatic seizures, neuroimaging of religious participants, psychedelically induced mystical states and perceptions of supernatural agents. To adequately account for SA perceptions, however, recent evidence suggests that REM sleep and dreaming mechanisms likely play a role. Future research should examine neurodevelopmental mechanisms of acquired SA perceptions as well as societal-level effects such as brain mediated religious beliefs of in-group cohesion and out-group hostility.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the Socratic graph.