A recent article in Science Daily tells of a group of Italian researchers led by Dr. Cosimo Urgesi who studied brain tumor patients before and after surgery to remove their tumors. The removal of a tumor generally causes lesions in the brain that last after the removal. Urgesi and his colleagues were trying to measure the changes in brain function and personality that might result from these damaged areas in the brain.
Using a measure of self-transcendence, which is a personality trait that is thought to correlate strongly with spiritual feeling, the researchers tested patients prior to and after tumor removal surgery. Self-transcendence is the sense that the world is bigger than one's self, and the acknowledgment of one's role in the larger universe. Urgesi found that damage to the right and left posterior parietal regions of the brain were strongly correlated with an increase in self-transcendence in his subjects. Previous studies have sought to draw a connection between a neural network that connects the frontal, parietal and temporal cortexes with spirituality, but none has generated the kind of causative results that these researchers are claiming.
These findings have a lot of interesting applications as well as philosophical questions carried along with them. For one, they suggest that certain mental disorders may benefit from selective damage to brain areas that will induce increases in positive psychological constructs such as self-transcendence. I am interested in finding out more about how lesions cause increased spirituality and self-awareness. How can damage to the brain elicit a positive response such as this? Does this necessarily imply that spirituality is part of some sort of faulty brain processing?
I wonder how much of the increase in spirituality (or self-transcendence, as it was measured) was due to the fact that the patients had just survived invasive brain surgery. I don't think you can ignore the profound implications of that process. That said, I think the emphasis on the right and left posterior parietal regions is interesting. What other functions are those areas associated with? I am particularly curious to know what self-transcendence is linked to. I would love to see a study of Buddhist monks (of which there have been so many lately) and their experience of self-transcendence. It is interesting that this is a quality that can be naturally developed and (potentially) simultaneously induced via tumor removal.
ReplyDeleteThis is really interesting, and especially as a person who has a faith, this is fascinating and it touches upon some things I have been wondering for a while. But I'm cautiously curious because it's not a proven causation. As you stated, it's only a correlation between damage or lesions to those certain brain regions and heightened self-transcendence. While the correlation might not be deniable, it's still possible that it's not the "faulty brain processing" causing more spirituality, but rather that it's a result of an absence of these functional parts and/or the way the remaining neural mechanisms work together.
ReplyDeleteAlthough I'm sure the authors looked at patients with lesions in various locations before finding a correlation in the right and left posterior parietal regions, I agree with Lucy that surviving invasive brain surgery may definitely serve as a confounding factor. In addition, because spirituality was the social norm hundreds of years ago, it does not seem plausible that it is due to a neural abnormality. If the "abnormality" is shared by the entire population then it is not abnormal. In my opinion spirituality is a social construct; however I do believe that brain damage may have profound effects that mimic spirituality.
ReplyDeleteI love this post. I always find it interesting and worthwhile to assess the differences between the people that I know and myself. At one point earlier this year, I had a group of 5 people in my room and we got on the topic of spirituality and religious beliefs, and each person in the room has a completely different set and degree of beliefs. An article such as the one you reference makes me realize that there are so many intricate personality differences that can be attributed to neuroscience. Furthermore, I wonder if damage to the areas mentioned in your post is also associated with a decreased level of selfishness?
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