Recent work:

We used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to investigate how performing formalized and improvised forms of praying to God changed the neural response in a group of highly religious young Christians.

Previous cognitive studies have demonstrated that religious subjects generally use intuitive inferences about God in online cognitive processing. Our results support this finding. We found activity in the social cognitive network which is involved in 'theory of mind' thinking. In the report we argue that this pattern of activation in personal praying suggests that talking to God, who is considered ‘real' rather than ‘fictitious' like Santa Claus (which was used as contrast condition), is comparable to normal interpersonal interaction. Thus, in terms of brain function, the Christian participants seem to recruit intuitive social cognitive processing when they relate to God.

This work was done in collaboration with the MR Research Centre and the Center of Functionally Integrative Neuroscience (CFIN), Aarhus University Hospital, and the Department of the Study of Religion, University of Aarhus.

Reference: Schjoedt, U., Stødkilde-Jørgensen, H., Geertz, A. W., Roepstorff, A. (2009). Highly religious participants recruit areas of social cognition. Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience (Epub ahead of print, February 25, 2009).