Center for Brain Circuit Therapeutics, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA 02115.
Department of Neurology, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA 02115.
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2024 Sep 3;121(36):e2322399121. doi: 10.1073/pnas.2322399121. Epub 2024 Aug 27.
Religious fundamentalism, characterized by rigid adherence to a set of beliefs putatively revealing inerrant truths, is ubiquitous across cultures and has a global impact on society. Understanding the psychological and neurobiological processes producing religious fundamentalism may inform a variety of scientific, sociological, and cultural questions. Research indicates that brain damage can alter religious fundamentalism. However, the precise brain regions involved with these changes remain unknown. Here, we analyzed brain lesions associated with varying levels of religious fundamentalism in two large datasets from independent laboratories. Lesions associated with greater fundamentalism were connected to a specific brain network with nodes in the right orbitofrontal, dorsolateral prefrontal, and inferior parietal lobe. This fundamentalism network was strongly right hemisphere lateralized and highly reproducible across the independent datasets ( = 0.82) with cross-validations between datasets. To explore the relationship of this network to lesions previously studied by our group, we tested for similarities to twenty-one lesion-associated conditions. Lesions associated with confabulation and criminal behavior showed a similar connectivity pattern as lesions associated with greater fundamentalism. Moreover, lesions associated with poststroke pain showed a similar connectivity pattern as lesions associated with lower fundamentalism. These findings are consistent with the current understanding of hemispheric specializations for reasoning and lend insight into previously observed epidemiological associations with fundamentalism, such as cognitive rigidity and outgroup hostility.
宗教原教旨主义的特点是对一套据称揭示了绝对真理的信仰的僵化坚持，它在不同文化中无处不在，对社会具有全球性的影响。了解产生宗教原教旨主义的心理和神经生物学过程可以为各种科学、社会学和文化问题提供信息。研究表明，大脑损伤会改变宗教原教旨主义。然而，与这些变化相关的确切大脑区域仍然未知。在这里，我们分析了来自两个独立实验室的两个大型数据集，与不同程度的宗教原教旨主义相关的大脑损伤。与更强烈的原教旨主义相关的损伤与一个特定的大脑网络有关，该网络的节点位于右眶额、背外侧前额叶和下顶叶。这个原教旨主义网络强烈地偏向右侧，在两个独立的数据集之间具有高度的可重复性（= 0.82），并且在数据集之间进行了交叉验证。为了探索这个网络与我们小组之前研究的损伤之间的关系，我们测试了它与 21 种与损伤相关的条件的相似性。与虚构和犯罪行为相关的损伤表现出与与更强烈的原教旨主义相关的损伤相似的连接模式。此外，与中风后疼痛相关的损伤表现出与与较低的原教旨主义相关的损伤相似的连接模式。这些发现与当前对推理的半球专业化的理解一致，并为之前观察到的与原教旨主义相关的流行病学关联提供了深入的了解，例如认知僵化和对外群体的敌意。
