Neural correlates of religious experience

The commonsense view of religious experience is that it is a preconceptual, immediate affective event. Work in philosophy and psychology, however, sug gest that religious experience is an attributional cognitive phenomenon. He re the neural correlates of a religious experience are investigated using f unctional neuroimaging. During religious recitation, self-identified religi ous subjects activated a frontal-parietal circuit, composed of the dorsolat eral prefrontal, dorsomedial frontal and medial parietal cortex. Prior stud ies indicate that these areas play a profound role in sustaining reflexive evaluation of thought. Thus, religious experience may be a cognitive proces s which, nonetheless, feels immediate.