Society & Culture - Posted by Mary Jane Gore-Duke on Thursday, May 19, 2011 13:51 - 8 Comments 
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(1 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5) Loading ...Religion changes lives … and brains?
"Several studies have found that, for many people, belonging to a religious group seems to be related to better health in later life, but not all religious people experience the same benefits. This study may help us to understand some of the reasons for those differences," says David Hayward. (Credit: iStockphoto)
DUKE (US) — All human brains shrink with age, but people who say they’ve had a life-changing religious experience have more shrinkage in the hippocampus than those who have not.
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The text of this article by Futurity is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivatives License.
Shrinkage (atrophy) in the hippocampus has been linked to depression and Alzheimer’s disease.
In standardized interviews, 268 people aged 58-84 were asked about their religious group, spiritual practices, and life-changing religious experiences. Changes in the volume of their hippocampus were then tracked, using MRI scans, over a period of 2-8 years.
Researchers found that Protestants who did not identify themselves as born-again had less atrophy in the hippocampus region than did born-again Protestants, Catholics, or those having no religious affiliation. Findings are reported in PLoS ONE (Public Library of Science ONE), an open-access journal.
“Several studies have found that, for many people, belonging to a religious group seems to be related to better health in later life, but not all religious people experience the same benefits. This study may help us to understand some of the reasons for those differences,” says David Hayward, a research associate at Duke University.
Hayward and the study’s lead author, Amy Owen, say these findings were not explained by other factors related to hippocampal atrophy, such as age, education, social support from friends and family, depression, or brain size. In addition, other religious factors (such as prayer, meditation, or Bible study) did not predict changes in the volume of the hippocampus in this study.
The authors speculate that stress might play a role in their findings.
“One interpretation of our finding—that members of majority religious groups seem to have less atrophy compared with minority religious groups—is that when you feel your beliefs and values are somewhat at odds with those of society as a whole, it may contribute to long-term stress that could have implications for the brain,” says Owen, a research associate at Duke.
“Other studies have led us to think that whether a new experience you consider spiritual is interpreted as comforting or stressful may depend on whether or not it fits in with your existing religious beliefs and those of the people around you,” Hayward says.
“Especially for older adults, these unexpected new experiences may lead to doubts about long-held religious beliefs, or to disagreements with friends and family.
While this stress may be a plausible interpretation of the findings of this study, the authors caution that not enough detail is known about the mechanics of how stress affects brain atrophy.
This study is among the first to examine religious and spiritual links to changes in volume of specific areas in the brain, and is the first to explore religious factors such as life-changing religious experiences. Rather than suggesting that particular religious experiences or groups should be avoided or promoted, the emphasis of this study was to help clarify possible relationships between religion and the brain.
Learning which factors are associated with hippocampal atrophy is valuable, as previous research has established that smaller hippocampal volumes are related to health outcomes such as depression, dementia, and Alzheimer’s disease in older adulthood.
This study was funded by National Institutes of Health and the John Templeton Foundation.
More news from Duke University: http://today.duke.edu/
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8 Comments
alex rosenberg
Wow, this study seems to have the potential to open up a very big can of worms. I hope the ‘non-mainstream zealots’ out there don’t get their feathers ruffled and become even more stressed out!
We’ve long known a major life change induces stress. It seems to me a religious life-changing experience would be especially stressful, mainly because it would affect almost every aspect of life, including relationship with a spouse and children, ethical disposition toward work, reassessment of political views, and even patterns of recreation. If such a global change in one’s life would impact the size of the hippocampus, then it’s a cost religion must reckon with. Moses, Buddha, Jesus, and Mohammed all called for such a comprehensive reorientation of life.
Roy Niles
Non-use of the hippocampus for solving problems that require more use of short and long term memory can in theory cause shrinkage – fundamental religionists don’t do a lot of critical or analytical thinking, and/or perhaps took up religion to get the thinking that’s been done for them already. (Not something that it’s PC to talk about but what the hey.)
Susan
@Roy What about the people with no religious affiliation? They may have been engaging in a lot of critical and analytical thinking that lead them to accept no particular religion.
@Susan, I engage in some of my most satisfying conversations about faith with those whose analytical thinking has led them to “no particular religion,” and even to the atheist position. They often respect the depth, meaning and implications of my faith convictions more seriously, and assess them more honestly, than many of my Christian coreligionists. Some of them are even regularly in my church. Maybe we should just break off together and found The Evangelical Church of the Larger Hippocampus.
Roy Niles
Susan and all,
Fundamentalists don’t do critical thinking when it comes to anything that their religion tells them not to think about. I grew up around what we called bible thumpers and I think I know the type. My mother however was a theology inspired Christian and had no problem with going out of the box. The religious theme in our house in general was that God helps those who helps themselves. Consequently almost all the kids became well educated agnostics, but that’s another story.
Bryant
It would be interesting if they could induce the leaders of these fundamentalist/evangelical sects to have these same scans done and see if they correlate with the congregations! Then encourage them to participate in Mindfulness daily for a year and see if they had any experienced any growth in their hippocampus and how many became ex-fundamentalist/evangelicals once they became more open.
It’s interesting that Duke University, the affiliation of the PI did not make any mention of this study in its daily news release of Duke in the news…I wonder why?