J Neuropsychiatry Clin Neurosci 1997; 9:498-510
Copyright © 1997 by American Neuropsychiatric Association
The neural substrates of religious experience
JL Saver and J Rabin
UCLA-Reed Neurologic Research Center 90095, USA.
Religious experience is brain-based, like all human experience. Clues to
the neural substrates of religious-numinous experience may be gleaned from
temporolimbic epilepsy, near-death experiences, and hallucinogen ingestion.
These brain disorders and conditions may produce depersonalization,
derealization, ecstasy, a sense of timelessness and spacelessness, and
other experiences that foster religious-numinous interpretation. Religious
delusions are an important subtype of delusional experience in
schizophrenia, and mood-congruent religious delusions are a feature of
mania and depression. The authors suggest a limbic marker hypothesis for
religious-mystical experience. The temporolimbic system tags certain
encounters with external or internal stimuli as depersonalized, derealized,
crucially important, harmonious, and/or joyous, prompting comprehension of
these experiences within a religious framework.
