Study: no relationship between brain structure and religiosity

[spartan max2]

Faith and gray matter: New study finds no relationship between brain structure and religiosity

Quote

A new, preregistered study out of the Netherlands, published in the European Journal of Neuroscience, sought to test prominent hypotheses in the literature relating brain structure to religious experience by way of a high-powered (i.e., having a large sample size), methodologically robust study on religiosity and structural brain differences.

 

Quote

In the study, 211 participants answered a series of questions on religiosity and religious experiences, and then underwent voxel-wise, Region of Interest (ROI) brain scans. Such scans divide the brain into three-dimensional “pixels” (voxel = volume + pixel), which can then be compared between subjects for a particular region. This allows for robust confirmatory testing of hypotheses and provides a simple fashion of quantifying differences in brain matter.

 

Ultimately, the authors found no relation between structural brain differences in relation to self-reported religiosity or mystical experiences, whether using ROI analysis or whole-brain analysis. To conclude, they recommend that future research forgo such attempts, and instead focus on functional and multivariate approaches.

 

https://www.psypost.org/2021/06/faith-and-gray-matter-new-study-finds-no-relationship-between-brain-structure-and-religiosity-61098

 

Edited June 11, 2021 by spartan max2

[+Desertrat56]

Probably could find a correlation between religiosity and fear.

[XenoFish]

43 minutes ago, Desertrat56 said:

Probably could find a correlation between religiosity and fear.

I'm thinking anxiety. 

[+Desertrat56]

1 minute ago, Xeno-Fish said:

I'm thinking anxiety. 

Isn't that fear?

[XenoFish]

1 minute ago, Desertrat56 said:

Isn't that fear?

https://www.verywellmind.com/fear-and-anxiety-differences-and-similarities-2584399

[papageorge1]

It's not even clear to me what 'religiosity' means. Here's the first couple sentences from Wikipedia:

Religiosity is difficult to define, but different scholars have seen this concept as broadly about religious orientations and involvement. It includes experiential, ritualistic, ideological, intellectual, consequential, creedal, communal, doctrinal, moral, and cultural dimensions.^[

Now to tie that into brain structure differences seems unclear right from the start.