Azari N P, Nickel J, Wunderlich G, Niedeggen M, Hefter H, Tellmann L, Herzog H, Stoerig P, Birnbacher D, Seitz R J
Department of Neurology, University Hospital Düsseldorf, Germany.
Eur J Neurosci. 2001 Apr;13(8):1649-52. doi: 10.1046/j.0953-816x.2001.01527.x.
The commonsense view of religious experience is that it is a preconceptual, immediate affective event. Work in philosophy and psychology, however, suggest that religious experience is an attributional cognitive phenomenon. Here the neural correlates of a religious experience are investigated using functional neuroimaging. During religious recitation, self-identified religious subjects activated a frontal-parietal circuit, composed of the dorsolateral prefrontal, dorsomedial frontal and medial parietal cortex. Prior studies indicate that these areas play a profound role in sustaining reflexive evaluation of thought. Thus, religious experience may be a cognitive process which, nonetheless, feels immediate.
对宗教体验的常识性看法是，它是一种前概念的、直接的情感事件。然而，哲学和心理学领域的研究表明，宗教体验是一种归因性认知现象。在此，利用功能性神经成像技术对宗教体验的神经关联进行了研究。在宗教诵读过程中，自我认定为宗教信徒的受试者激活了一个额顶叶回路，该回路由背外侧前额叶、背内侧前额叶和顶叶内侧皮质组成。先前的研究表明，这些区域在维持对思想的反思性评估中发挥着重要作用。因此，宗教体验可能是一个认知过程，尽管如此，却感觉是直接的。
