19 Mormons, all of whom had spent one to two years carrying out missionary work, were hooked up to functional MRI machines while working on specific tasks iStock/aradaphotography

Religious and spiritual experiences are neurologically similar to the euphoria of love and of drug-taking, a team of neuroscientists has concluded.

The team, led by a University of Utah neuroradiologist Jeffrey Anderson, found that in a group of 19 young Mormons, the same reward-based neural systems associated with drug-taking were activated when the individuals were “feeling the spirit”. Specifically, the nucleus accumbens was repeatedly activated, an area of the brain that is key to the circuit of reward and reinforcement. The frontal attentional, linked to attention, and the ventromedial prefrontal cortical loci, associated with decision-making were also activated. Those with damage to the ventromedial prefrontal cortical loci have been shown to exhibit antisocial behaviour and have their moral judgement impaired.


The team had suspected religious experience would be related to the reward mechanisms of the brain but wanted to be able to define it in order to better understand the motivations behind a host of behaviours - from altruism to violence, both often committed in the name of religion.

Incredibly, the authors point out in the journal Social Neuroscience, “despite the reported impact of religious experience in the lives of more than 5.8 billion religiously affiliated individuals worldwide, even basic questions about brain networks engaged by religious experience remain unclear”. Considering the wars, both historical and ongoing, that have been waged in the name of religion, this fact is all the more surprising.

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Mormons were chosen for the study specifically because of the “centrality of charismatic religious joy” to the religion. Seven women and 12 men, all of whom had spent one to two years carrying out missionary work, were hooked up to functional MRI machines while working on specific tasks. These included resting, watching a church video on membership and finances, reading Biblical excerpts, reading quotes from a variety of religious leaders, and praying. The participants were asked to press a button whenever they were experiencing heightened spiritual feelings. Time and again, the reward-circuit regions of the brain were activated at the same time as the participants pressed the buttons most frequently. These are the same sections of the brain that instigate dopamine release during drug-taking, enabling addiction.

The authors do concede that far more work, into multiple religions, needs to be carried out to confirm the results. And that the participants may have self-reporting heightened spiritual feelings “out of a desire to appear more socially consistent with the aims of the study”. However, the research may be the start of an intriguing line of study into religiously-motivated behaviours of all kinds. In an interview with CNN, Anderson pointed out it was first study to show the link with our brain’s reward system, and is a stepping stone to exploring all kinds of religiously-motivated behaviours.


"Billions of people make important decisions in life based on spiritual and religious feelings and experiences. It's one of the most powerful influences on our social behaviour. Yet we know so little about what actually happens in the brain during these experiences. It's just a critical question that needs more study."

One of the most pressing related questions is whether the same mechanisms are being activated when an individual is being compelled to do good works or commit violence in the name of religion. Anderson says: “does it feel the same way in the same regions of the brain for a Lutheran woman in Minnesota studying the Bible as for someone in Syria contemplating religiously motivated violence?"

For now, the study authors have suggested the results show how these neural responses to spiritual feelings can simply serve to reinforce dedication to a particular faith: “The pairing of classical reward responses with abstract religious ideation may indicate a brain mechanism for attachment to doctrinal concepts and charismatic in-group religious leaders.” Essentially, the sensations people experience in these moments backup the idea that they have chosen the right moral path.


Although the study does not specifically mention it, the nucleus accumbens, and the reward system in general, are associated with the addictive triggers that tells the brain love and drug-taking are pleasurable and should be repeated.

Although Anderson says the study is the first to link spiritual experience with the brain’s reward system, there is an increasing amount of work looking at the neuroscience behind religion. Brain scans taken during extremely heightened religious experiences such as speaking in tongues, have shown a decrease in frontal lobe activity, related to focus and concentration. Contrastly, Buddhist monks exhibit heightened activity in these areas during meditation. An increase in the limbic system, which modulates emotion, has also been recorded during prayer.

Meanwhile, a US molecular geneticist claims to have identified a gene, VMAT2, which makes some people more susceptible to spiritual experiences. The gene also has a part to play in drug addiction.