God Spots in the Brain
Nine Categories of Unasked, Unanswered Questions
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 3245326 |
|---|---|
| Authors | W R Klemm (0000-0003-3556-5485, Texas A&M University, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2020 |
| Volume | 11 |
| Issue | 9 |
| Pages | 468 |
| Publication date | 2020-09-14 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Religions (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 2077-1444 • E-ISSN: 2077-1444 |
| Publisher | MDPI AG (PUBLISHER • IT) |
| DOI | 10.3390/rel11090468 |
| OpenAlex | W3086627168 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 1 |
| References cited | 37 |
Neurotheology is an emerging academic discipline that examines mind-brain relationships in terms of the inter-relatedness of neuroscience, spirituality, and religion. Neurotheology originated from brain-scan studies that revealed specific correlations between certain religious thoughts and localized activated brain areas known as "God Spots." This relatively young scholarly discipline lacks clear consensus on its definition, ideology, purpose, or prospects for future research. Of special interest is the consideration of the next steps using brain scans to develop this field of research. This review proposes nine categories of future research that could build on the foundation laid by the prior discoveries of God Spots. Specifically, this analysis identifies some sparsely addressed issues that could be usefully explored with new kinds of brain-scan studies: neural network operations, the cognitive neuroscience of prayer, biology of belief, measures of religiosity, role of the self, learning and memory, religious and secular cognitive commonalities, static and functional anatomy, and recruitment of neural processing circuitry. God Spot research is poised to move beyond observation to robust hypothesis generation and testing
Cognition · Cognitive science · Ideology · Political science · Politics · Prayer · Religiosity · Social cognition · Social neuroscience · Spirituality · Cognitive Neuroscience · Medicine · Memory and Neural Mechanisms · Mind wandering and attention · Neuroscience · Philosophy · Psychology · Religion, Spirituality, and Psychology · Social Psychology
The Neuroscience of Religious Experience
Dissociable Intrinsic Connectivity Networks for Salience Processing and Executive Control
A Semantic Network Cartography of the Creative Mind
Highly religious participants recruit areas of social cognition in personal prayer
Creative Cognition and Brain Network Dynamics
Functional Neuroimaging of Anxiety
Neuroimaging of prayer
Prayer as an interpersonal relationship
Whither Neurotheology
| Unique citing works | 1 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0,25 |
| Citation span | 2022 - 2022 (1) |
| Citation velocity | historical |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 1 |