SynthesisHarvard review of psychiatry
Current Understanding of Religion, Spirituality, and Their Neurobiological Correlates.
Synthesis in Harvard review of psychiatry. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 23 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
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
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
23 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
- The Association Between Religiosity and Lifelong Cancer Incidence in an Israeli Male Cohort: A Competing Risk Survival Analysis.Epidemiologia (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Article
- Seeking Something Beyond Themselves: A Concept Analysis of Spiritual Awakening Experiences at the End of Life.Nursing reports (Pavia, Italy) · 2025Article
- Religiosity, Financial Risk Taking, and Reward Processing: An Experimental Study.Journal of gambling studies · 2025Article
- Neurospirituality Connectome - Role in Neurology and Reward Deficiency Syndrome (RDS).Neurology (E-Cronicon) · 2025Article
- Editorial: Spirituality and religion: implications for mental health.Frontiers in psychology · 2025Article
- Attachment style and its impact on connection to God in individuals with brain injury: behavioral and lesion-based findings.Frontiers in neurology · 2025Article
- Spirituality is associated with immune parameters and disease activity in primary Sjögren's syndrome: a cross-sectional study.Scientific reports · 2024Article
- Monitoring the neural activity associated with praying in Sahaja Yoga meditation.BMC neuroscience · 2023Article
- Resilience and spirituality mediate anxiety and life satisfaction in chronically Ill older adults.BMC psychology · 2023Article
- Global synergistic actions to improve brain health for human development.Nature reviews. Neurology · 2023Article
- Perceived changes in the mental well-being among Nigerians due to Ramadan Intermittent Fasting during the COVID-19 pandemic.Brain and behavior · 2023Article
- Morphologic alterations of the fear circuitry: the role of sex hormones and oral contraceptives.Frontiers in endocrinology · 2023Article
- Parental religiosity is associated with changes in youth functional network organization and cognitive performance in early adolescence.Scientific reports · 2022Article
- Postdiction in Visual Awareness and Intrinsic Religiosity.Cognitive science · 2022Article
- A Neural Circuit for Spirituality and Religiosity Derived From Patients With Brain Lesions.Biological psychiatry · 2022Article
- Spirituality as Strategies for Coping With Tropical Spastic Paraparesis: Results of Focus Group.Journal of religion and health · 2022Article
- Adaptability, supernaturalness, and the neurocognitive basis of the self-transcendence trait: Toward an integrated framework through disaster psychology and a self-agency model.Frontiers in behavioral neuroscience · 2022Article
- Spirituality as a protective factor for chronic and acute anxiety in Brazilian healthcare workers during the COVID-19 outbreak.PloS one · 2022Article
- Neurobiology and Spirituality in Addiction Recovery.Acta scientific neurology · 2021Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
9 authors.
Funding
Abstract
Religion and spirituality (R/S) have been prominent aspects of most human cultures through the ages; however, scientific inquiry into this phenomenon has been limited. We conducted a systematic literature review of research on the neurobiological correlates of R/S, which resulted in 25 reports studying primarily R/S with electroencephalography, structural neuroimaging (MRI), and functional neuroimaging (fMRI, PET). These studies investigated a wide range of religions (e.g., Christianity, Buddhism, Islam) and R/S states and behaviors (e.g., resting state, prayer, judgments) and employed a wide range of methodologies, some of which (e.g., no control group, varying measures of religiosity, small sample sizes) raise concerns about the validity of the results. Despite these limitations, the findings of these studies collectively suggest that the experience of R/S has specific neurobiological correlates and that these correlates are distinct from non-R/S counterparts. The findings implicate several brain regions potentially associated with R/S development and behavior, including the medial frontal cortex, orbitofrontal cortex, precuneus, posterior cingulate cortex, default mode network, and caudate. This research may suggest future clinical applications and interventions related to R/S and various disorders, including mood, anxiety, psychotic, pain, and vertiginous disorders. Further studies with more rigorous study designs are warranted to elucidate the neurobiological mechanisms of R/S and their potential clinical applications.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
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.