ArticleSocial neuroscience2018
Reward, salience, and attentional networks are activated by religious experience in devout Mormons.
Article in Social neuroscience, 2018. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 13 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
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Who cites it
13 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 108 citations in OpenAlex.
- The Neuroscience of Religious and Spiritual Practices: A Systematic Review of Neurotheological Evidence.Brain and behavior · 2026Pooled it
- Modulation of stress and neuroplasticity biomarkers via rhythmic vocalization: a controlled study on NDNF, cortisol, and monoamines.BMC neuroscience · 2026Article
- The experiential self state as affective salience: a dual-self states framework for consciousness and self-transcendence.Neuroscience of consciousness · 2026Article
- The Dark Side of Moral Conviction-Integrating Political Psychology, Cognitive Science, and Neuroscience.Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences · 2025Article
- A review of the neuroscience of religion: an overview of the field, its limitations, and future interventions.Frontiers in neuroscience · 2025Review
- Attachment style and its impact on connection to God in individuals with brain injury: behavioral and lesion-based findings.Frontiers in neurology · 2025Article
- Oxytocin and our place in the universe.Comprehensive psychoneuroendocrinology · 2024Review
- Spirituality is associated with immune parameters and disease activity in primary Sjögren's syndrome: a cross-sectional study.Scientific reports · 2024Article
- Parental religiosity is associated with changes in youth functional network organization and cognitive performance in early adolescence.Scientific reports · 2022Article
- A Neural Circuit for Spirituality and Religiosity Derived From Patients With Brain Lesions.Biological psychiatry · 2022Article
- "A Temple of God": A Qualitative Analysis of the connection Between Spiritual/Religious Beliefs and Health Among Mormons.Journal of religion and health · 2020Article
- Neural underpinning of a personal relationship with God and sense of control: A lesion-mapping study.Cognitive, affective & behavioral neuroscience · 2020Article
- Neural Correlates of Personalized Spiritual Experiences.Cerebral cortex (New York, N.Y. : 1991) · 2019Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
8 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
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.
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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 OpenQuestion graph.