[tips] Brain Damage Makes You More Spiritual?
I came a across an article on the Science News website that seems to claim that (a) a specific brain area is associated with spirituality and (b) damage to this area increased one's spirituality as defined by a a measure of Self-Transcendence (ST). Quoting from the article: |The group found that selective damage to the left and right posterior |parietal regions induced a specific increase in ST. Our symptom-lesion |mapping study is the first demonstration of a causative link between |brain functioning and ST, offers Dr. Urgesi. Damage to posterior |parietal areas induced unusually fast changes of a stable personality |dimension related to transcendental self-referential awareness. Thus, |dysfunctional parietal neural activity may underpin altered spiritual |and religious attitudes and behaviors. For more, see: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/02/100210124757.htm Well, I've always wondered if there was something wrong with spiritual people but In other news, there appears to be no God Spot in the brain (I didn't even know that folks were looking for one). See: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/04/120419091223.htm Will the wonders of neuroscience ever cease? -Mike Palij New York University m...@nyu.edu --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: arch...@jab.org. To unsubscribe click here: http://fsulist.frostburg.edu/u?id=13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df5d5n=Tl=tipso=17385 or send a blank email to leave-17385-13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df...@fsulist.frostburg.edu
Re: [tips] Brain Damage Makes You More Spiritual?
Hey Mike Well, some will argue that spirituality is a personality trait in its own right, the 6th and neglected trait, and totally overshadowed by the Big 5 OCEAN. I am not surprised there are neurological links; temporal lobe epilepsy has been linked to spiritual states of consciousness, and there is speculation (hard to prove since they are dead) that classic religious _religious_ flashes of Moses, Saul/Paul, Joan of Arc, etc were temporal lobe _spiritual_ events (the Geschwind syndrome). Dostoyevsky probably had temporal lobe epilepsy and showed the hyper religiosity and hyper graphia and maybe altered states of sexuality (again, he's dead so data is sketchy but intriguing ..). My only quibble with the implication in your post is the hint that spirituality results from dysfunction. The ability to write is a basic human ability that appears to get tweaked with Geschwind syndrome, and spirituality may be the same thing .. i.e. its a basic trait that falls on a normal curve but can go into hyper-drive with neurological dysfunction. People who measure spirituality (such as Ralph Piedmont and his ASPIRES instrument) measure it in otherwise normal people and it has good reliability. There is some construct validity in that ASPIRES predicts a host of measures of well being above and beyond what other personality traits predict, and gender and age effects are what we'd expect. It has pretty decent internal homogeneity and when factor analyzed yields three factors that make some theoretical sense (I have the technical info and a few references in my office that I can find tomorrow). Interestingly AND teaching related, I discussed the ASPIRES today in a measurement class after we all took it. I like using spirituality as an example of demonstrating reliability/validity, as some students thing its a real thing and others do not. i.e. for them the jury is still out on whether its a real thing . == John W. Kulig, Ph.D. Professor of Psychology Coordinator, University Honors Plymouth State University Plymouth NH 03264 == - Original Message - From: Michael Palij m...@nyu.edu To: Teaching in the Psychological Sciences (TIPS) tips@fsulist.frostburg.edu Cc: Michael Palij m...@nyu.edu Sent: Thursday, April 19, 2012 5:43:07 PM Subject: [tips] Brain Damage Makes You More Spiritual? I came a across an article on the Science News website that seems to claim that (a) a specific brain area is associated with spirituality and (b) damage to this area increased one's spirituality as defined by a a measure of Self-Transcendence (ST). Quoting from the article: |The group found that selective damage to the left and right posterior |parietal regions induced a specific increase in ST. Our symptom-lesion |mapping study is the first demonstration of a causative link between |brain functioning and ST, offers Dr. Urgesi. Damage to posterior |parietal areas induced unusually fast changes of a stable personality |dimension related to transcendental self-referential awareness. Thus, |dysfunctional parietal neural activity may underpin altered spiritual |and religious attitudes and behaviors. For more, see: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/02/100210124757.htm Well, I've always wondered if there was something wrong with spiritual people but In other news, there appears to be no God Spot in the brain (I didn't even know that folks were looking for one). See: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/04/120419091223.htm Will the wonders of neuroscience ever cease? -Mike Palij New York University m...@nyu.edu --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: ku...@mail.plymouth.edu. To unsubscribe click here: http://fsulist.frostburg.edu/u?id=13338.f659d005276678c0696b7f6beda66454n=Tl=tipso=17385 or send a blank email to leave-17385-13338.f659d005276678c0696b7f6beda66...@fsulist.frostburg.edu --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: arch...@jab.org. To unsubscribe click here: http://fsulist.frostburg.edu/u?id=13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df5d5n=Tl=tipso=17386 or send a blank email to leave-17386-13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df...@fsulist.frostburg.edu
Re: [tips] Brain Damage Makes You More Spiritual?
Mike and others I always do everything backwards, I read your link _after_ I shot off my post! The researchers in Italy were measuring (ST) Self-Transcendence which is a trait in Cloninger's Temperment and Character Inventory (TCI). ST has three sub scales, and a brief description of ST can be found (where else? yada yada ..) at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temperament_and_Character_Inventory. The ASPIRES has transcendence items in it, but a slightly different factor analysis structure. I'm more familiar with the ASPIRES but Cloninger's ST is more widely used ... Thanks for the post ... == John W. Kulig, Ph.D. Professor of Psychology Coordinator, University Honors Plymouth State University Plymouth NH 03264 == - Original Message - From: Michael Palij m...@nyu.edu To: Teaching in the Psychological Sciences (TIPS) tips@fsulist.frostburg.edu Cc: Michael Palij m...@nyu.edu Sent: Thursday, April 19, 2012 5:43:07 PM Subject: [tips] Brain Damage Makes You More Spiritual? I came a across an article on the Science News website that seems to claim that (a) a specific brain area is associated with spirituality and (b) damage to this area increased one's spirituality as defined by a a measure of Self-Transcendence (ST). Quoting from the article: |The group found that selective damage to the left and right posterior |parietal regions induced a specific increase in ST. Our symptom-lesion |mapping study is the first demonstration of a causative link between |brain functioning and ST, offers Dr. Urgesi. Damage to posterior |parietal areas induced unusually fast changes of a stable personality |dimension related to transcendental self-referential awareness. Thus, |dysfunctional parietal neural activity may underpin altered spiritual |and religious attitudes and behaviors. For more, see: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/02/100210124757.htm Well, I've always wondered if there was something wrong with spiritual people but In other news, there appears to be no God Spot in the brain (I didn't even know that folks were looking for one). See: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/04/120419091223.htm Will the wonders of neuroscience ever cease? -Mike Palij New York University m...@nyu.edu --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: ku...@mail.plymouth.edu. To unsubscribe click here: http://fsulist.frostburg.edu/u?id=13338.f659d005276678c0696b7f6beda66454n=Tl=tipso=17385 or send a blank email to leave-17385-13338.f659d005276678c0696b7f6beda66...@fsulist.frostburg.edu --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: arch...@jab.org. To unsubscribe click here: http://fsulist.frostburg.edu/u?id=13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df5d5n=Tl=tipso=17387 or send a blank email to leave-17387-13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df...@fsulist.frostburg.edu
Re: [tips] Brain Damage Makes You More Spiritual?
So what else is new? A dude who refers to himself as a Psychoarchaeologist (Julian Jaynes) wrote a work about the origin of consciousness in the breakdown of the bicameral mind.Jaynes hypothesized that the origin of religion could have been at a point where left hemisheric differentiation were perplexing and linguinstic aspects were viewed as inner voices became externalized and interpreted as coming from God. If brain damaged individuals become more spiritual,it could be beyond their control,which ironically is what spirituality is all about. Btw,is this an ex post facto study?How did they measure the spirituality before those individuals became brain damaged? michael --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: arch...@jab.org. To unsubscribe click here: http://fsulist.frostburg.edu/u?id=13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df5d5n=Tl=tipso=17391 or send a blank email to leave-17391-13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df...@fsulist.frostburg.edu
