Abstract
Mystical experiences, or subjectively believed encounters with a supernatural world, are widely reported across cultures and throughout human history. Previous theories speculate that executive brain functions underpin mystical experiences. To evaluate causal hypotheses, structural studies of brain lesion are required. Previous studies suffer from small samples or do not have valid measures of cognitive functioning prior to injury. We investigated mystical experience among participants from the Vietnam Head Injury Study and compared those who suffered penetrating traumatic brain injury (pTBI; n=116) with matched healthy controls (HC; n=32). Voxel-based lesion-symptom mapping analysis showed that lesions to frontal and temporal brain regions were linked with greater mystical experiences. Such regions included the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (dlPFC) and middle/superior temporal cortex (TC). In a confirmatory analysis, we grouped pTBI patients by lesion location and compared mysticism experiences with the HC group. The dlPFC group presented markedly increased mysticism. Notably, longitudinal analysis of pre-injury data (correlating with general intelligence and executive performance) excludes explanations from individual differences. Our findings support previous speculation linking executive brain functions to mystical experiences, and reveal that executive functioning (dlPFC) causally contributes to the down-regulation of mystical experiences.
| Original language | English (US) |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 212-220 |
| Number of pages | 9 |
| Journal | Neuropsychologia |
| Volume | 80 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Jan 8 2016 |
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Keywords
- Mystical experience
- Penetrating traumatic brain injuries
- Religious belief
- Voxel-based lesion-symptom mapping
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Experimental and Cognitive Psychology
- Cognitive Neuroscience
- Behavioral Neuroscience
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Neural correlates of mystical experience. / Cristofori, Irene; Bulbulia, Joseph; Shaver, John H.; Wilson, Marc; Krueger, Frank; Grafman, Jordan Henry.
In: Neuropsychologia, Vol. 80, 08.01.2016, p. 212-220.Research output: Contribution to journal › Article
TY - JOUR
T1 - Neural correlates of mystical experience
AU - Cristofori, Irene
AU - Bulbulia, Joseph
AU - Shaver, John H.
AU - Wilson, Marc
AU - Krueger, Frank
AU - Grafman, Jordan Henry
PY - 2016/1/8
Y1 - 2016/1/8
N2 - Mystical experiences, or subjectively believed encounters with a supernatural world, are widely reported across cultures and throughout human history. Previous theories speculate that executive brain functions underpin mystical experiences. To evaluate causal hypotheses, structural studies of brain lesion are required. Previous studies suffer from small samples or do not have valid measures of cognitive functioning prior to injury. We investigated mystical experience among participants from the Vietnam Head Injury Study and compared those who suffered penetrating traumatic brain injury (pTBI; n=116) with matched healthy controls (HC; n=32). Voxel-based lesion-symptom mapping analysis showed that lesions to frontal and temporal brain regions were linked with greater mystical experiences. Such regions included the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (dlPFC) and middle/superior temporal cortex (TC). In a confirmatory analysis, we grouped pTBI patients by lesion location and compared mysticism experiences with the HC group. The dlPFC group presented markedly increased mysticism. Notably, longitudinal analysis of pre-injury data (correlating with general intelligence and executive performance) excludes explanations from individual differences. Our findings support previous speculation linking executive brain functions to mystical experiences, and reveal that executive functioning (dlPFC) causally contributes to the down-regulation of mystical experiences.
AB - Mystical experiences, or subjectively believed encounters with a supernatural world, are widely reported across cultures and throughout human history. Previous theories speculate that executive brain functions underpin mystical experiences. To evaluate causal hypotheses, structural studies of brain lesion are required. Previous studies suffer from small samples or do not have valid measures of cognitive functioning prior to injury. We investigated mystical experience among participants from the Vietnam Head Injury Study and compared those who suffered penetrating traumatic brain injury (pTBI; n=116) with matched healthy controls (HC; n=32). Voxel-based lesion-symptom mapping analysis showed that lesions to frontal and temporal brain regions were linked with greater mystical experiences. Such regions included the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (dlPFC) and middle/superior temporal cortex (TC). In a confirmatory analysis, we grouped pTBI patients by lesion location and compared mysticism experiences with the HC group. The dlPFC group presented markedly increased mysticism. Notably, longitudinal analysis of pre-injury data (correlating with general intelligence and executive performance) excludes explanations from individual differences. Our findings support previous speculation linking executive brain functions to mystical experiences, and reveal that executive functioning (dlPFC) causally contributes to the down-regulation of mystical experiences.
KW - Mystical experience
KW - Penetrating traumatic brain injuries
KW - Religious belief
KW - Voxel-based lesion-symptom mapping
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84949895324&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=84949895324&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2015.11.021
DO - 10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2015.11.021
M3 - Article
VL - 80
SP - 212
EP - 220
JO - Neuropsychologia
JF - Neuropsychologia
SN - 0028-3932
ER -