This is your brain on God | Michael Ferguson | TEDxSaltLakeCity

Can science give us insights into age-old questions about religion? In this talk, Dr. Michael Ferguson describes the study he and his team conducted on believing Mormons when they reported to "feel the Spirit," a central event in Mormon worship. What they found might surprise both believers and skeptics.

Michael Ferguson is inspired by questions about human brains and the gods they adore. His research program examines the intersections of culture and brain through the lenses of cutting-edge fMRI methods and cognitive neuroscience. Most recently, he is conducting interdisciplinary work with philosophy of mind to analytically describe intelligence. As a graduate student at the University of Utah’s department of bioengineering, he, his committee chair, and co-investigators designed and executed a first-of- its-kind fMRI study, looking at the brain activity of returned missionaries for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints while the research participants were involved in acts of religious worship and devotion. Michael and his husband were the first same-sex couple legally married in the state of Utah, and they retain a major portion of their heart and love in Salt Lake City. They currently live in upstate New York, the spiritual cradle of their native faith.

This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at http://ted.com/tedx

This is your brain on God.

(Laughter)

As a graduate student
here at the University of Utah,

my team and I had the opportunity
to look inside the brains

of believing Latter-day Saints,
also known as Mormons,

when they were praying,
reading scriptures

and watching videos
of the religious leaders' teaching.

Being based in Salt Lake City, Utah,
Mormons are not in short supply.

(Laughter)

We recruited through the Deseret News,
the LDS Church-owned newspaper,

and invited devout members
of the religious community

to participate in psychometric testing

and functional magnetic
resonance imaging,

or fMRI.

fMRI is a wonderful scientific tool.

It allows us to measure tiny fluctuations
in oxygenated blood flow

that correspond
to neural changes in activity.

While our participants were
inside of the scanner,

they had a button box
attached to their chest

so that they could press a button
and indicate to us in real-time

when they were feeling the Spirit.

It's a cultural phenomenon

that's a central, epistemological event

significant to the truth claims
of the Mormon religion.

What we observed was
that across all task conditions,

the three areas of the brain

that consistently demonstrated
elevated activity

were the frontal attention regions,

the medial prefrontal cortex

and the nucleus accumbens -

an area of the brain

with an enriched supply
of the reward molecule, dopamine.

Far from just being a high tech blobology,

this Trinity of neural regions
sketches what we can reasonably label

as the neuro spiritual
system of Mormonism.

The implications are profound,
both for culture and for the brain.

One of the first questions
that comes to mind for me is,

"Does this neuro spiritual
system from Mormonism

map into the brains of religious
individuals from other faith traditions

when they are having
peak, ecstatic religious experiences?"

So many of the world's
spiritual traditions

report profound feelings of oneness
with a transcendent source,

often accompanied by an
increased charitable disposition.

Could it be that these cultural variations

are all being supported
by a common core of brain networks?

For the first time in the history
of contemplative philosophy

and the sciences of the mind,

we can answer these questions empirically
by skillfully measuring brain activity

with more temporal and spatial precision
than we've ever been able to do

even in the recent past of neuroscience.

This is an exciting time
to be a brain researcher.

Let's talk about the word
"God" for a moment.

It's a simple three-letter
word in English,

yet this one word is so powerful,
linguistically and psychologically,

that it is used to invoke
military courage,

to promote feelings of nationalism,

and even to justify war and atrocity.

The hypothetical omission of this one word
by a president of the United States,

the failure to simply say
"God bless America,"

would likely cause their public
approval ratings to plummet.

Whatever your metaphysical beliefs are,

the literal fact is that the trajectories
of lives and nations

swing on the hinge
of this one word:

"God."

To think about God, either
through construction or negation,

you have to deploy abstract reasoning.

The very principles
that are intrinsically bound up

in any conceivable definition
of the word "God"

include elements
of mystery and unknowing.

These very types of abstract principles

are precisely what land us
in the prefrontal cortex of the brain.

I have to step back and think
about this sometimes,

that we have inside the bones of our head

an electrical piece of meat

(Laughter)

that's generating abstract ideas
about divine nature.

The nucleus accumbens is located
a little bit lower in the brain,

in a region called the subcortex.

The subcortex is more ancient
than the prefrontal cortex

in terms of the evolutionary
time spans for its development.

The nucleus accumbens
is the brains' pleasure center.

It helps positively reinforce
environments and behaviors

that are rewarding to you

and that are beneficial to you.

I have to smile when I think
about how in the New Testament,

when Jesus describes heavenly rewards,

we are illuminating the biological
embodiment of these ancient metaphors.

When our study participants were
instructed to think about a savior,

about being with their
families for eternity,

in short, when they were thinking
about their heavenly rewards

as they imagined them,

the brains and their
bodies physically respond.

A classic hymn in the religious
movement of Joseph Smith

describes the Spirit of God
like a fire burning.

If you haven't ever felt it before,

it's actually a wonderful warm glow.

It makes you want to do good and be good.

It may be the emotion

that moral psychologist
Jonathan Hite refers to as elevation.

The frontal attention regions

are probably acting in concert
with the nucleus accumbens

in order to amplify the phenomenal
content of this religious experience.

This so is an area where we will
continue to do extended research

in order to better understand
the dynamics of this neural system

as it interacts with religious psychology.

In addition to the biology that supports
ecstatic religious experience,

we were also curious

about how social behavior
is influenced by the brain on God.

One possibility that we considered
is that perhaps our study participants

would demonstrate
an in-group authority bias

if they were asked to compare

the teachings of their
own religious leaders

with the teachings
from other faith traditions.

We designed a spiritual quotation's task

in which participants were presented
with a spiritual teaching,

and next to it,

with a picture of the person
who made the statement.

They were then asked to rate
how meaningful the teaching was

and also how strongly they felt
the Spirit in response to that teaching.

Sources for these teachings

were either from an in-group
religious authority figure,

in the case of our study,
those included two Mormon apostles,

Diederich Dorf and Jeffrey Holland,

and the president of the LDS Church
at the time of the study,

Thomas Monson.

The out-group religious figures

included Pope Francis,
Desmond Tutu and Billy Graham,

three non-Mormon Christian leaders.

Because this was an experiment though,

we threw in a little bit of a twist.

It turns out that none of the teachings
were from their attributed sources.

(Laughter)

We collected quotations
from the writings of C.S. Lewis.

(Laughter) (Cheers)

He's sometimes referred to
in Mormonism as a 13th apostle.

We randomized these teachings
across all of the trials.

And we asked the participants
to rank how meaningful they were,

how strongly they felt the Spirit,

and what we saw was so beautiful

from the point of view
of cognitive science.

Believing Mormons consistently
ranked the teachings of their own leaders

as more meaningful
and as more spiritually evocative

than the teachings
of out-group authority figures

even though in reality,
they were all from the same source.

To further explore the way

that social behavior is influenced
by the brain on God,

we had our participants
complete this task twice:

once at the beginning
of their study session,

and a second time, following
a 30-minute period of prayer,

of scripture study
and of religious devotion.

This now is the
audience-participation moment.

It's always fun to see

what people guess the effects of feeling
the Spirit are on social judgments.

So, option number one

is that after a 30-minute period
of prayer and scripture study

that our participants became more biased
against out-group authority figures.

Option two is that they became
less biased and more generous.

And option three is that we saw no changes
in the behavior that we were observing.

Now I want everybody to be really brave.

(Laughter)

Who thinks that option number one

was what we saw?

Okay.

Who thinks that option number two,
a decrease in the bias, is what we saw?

Who thinks that option number three,

held case that there was no change
in the behavior we observed?

And how about option four,

which is that you're too nervous to
make a guess about religion publicly?

(Laughter)

What we saw is that after a 30-minute
period of personal spiritual practice,

our study participants became
more generous to the out-group.

They arranged their teachings
as more meaningful

and reported to feel the Spirit
more strongly from them

than they had at the beginning
of the study session.

There are several possible mechanisms

that could be driving
the behaviors that we observe.

It's very likely, for example,

that principals from the psychology
of attachment theory

are participating in this authority bias.

There are also elements of classical
conditioning that might be at play here.

Biologically speaking,

when dopamine is released
through the brain,

it may be driving an increase
in social openness.

As is most often the case in science,

the full story likely requires
a complex map

with multiple layers of explanation.

Religion, in my mind,

shows a lot of similar
features with sex.

The majority of adults do it,

they say that it brings meaning
and pleasure into their lives,

and in spite of strident advocates
for abstinence only,

people are going to do it.

(Laughter)

No matter how many people say,
"Never be sexual,"

humans will be sexual.

No matter how many people say,
"Never be religious,"

humans will be religious.

These are behaviors that spring
from deep evolutionary needs.

What I advocate is not for science
to focus its editorializing

on the eradication of religious behavior,

but rather, like safe sex,

on evidence-based best practices for
how we can do religion safely and well.

(Cheers) (Applause)

Imagine a renewed partnership
between the seminary and the academy

to articulate intelligent safe theology.

It could do a lot of good
in a world that needs it.

We live in an exciting day
of rapidly accelerating discovery.

What that means is the formation
of radically disruptive ideas.

Interdisciplinary and convergent work
are exponentially driving the pace

of our expanded self-understanding.

The hope that I would like
to convey to you

is that by launching into a new era

of religious studies that incorporate
the best tools of our scientific methods,

we may win the capacity to further
enlighten our respective cultures

and to refine our religious traditions
in ways that make them more worthy

of the divine nature
that they claim to represent.

This is your brain on God.

Any questions?

(Applause)

Thank you.