Is Cortical Thickness Linked with Religious Beliefs?

A new study recently reported that thickness of gray region in certain parts of the brain correlates with religiousness or spirituality in a person.

The study, conducted by Lisa Miller, Ph.D., of Columbia University, New York, and colleagues, found that cortical thickness in some regions of the brain was associated with importance of religion and spirituality in people.

The cerebral cortex, also called the gray region of the brain, is known to be involved in processing information.

For the study, researchers took brain scans of 103 people (aged between 18 and 54 years). The participants were second or third generation offsprings of depressed or non-depressed people. Researchers measured their cortical thickness using magnetic resonance imaging. All participants' religiosity and spirituality were assessed. Researchers even accounted their church-going habits in the study.

The team found that cortical thickness was associated with spirituality and importance of religion, but not number of church visits.

The effect of spirituality on cortical thickness was stronger in people at high familial risk for depression than in people who were at low-risk, according to a press release.

"We note that these findings are correlational and therefore do not prove a causal association between importance and cortical thickness," the authors concluded.

Related research has shown that humans might be hard-wired for religion, with the seat of spirituality residing in a region called the temporal lobe in the brain. Another study showed that the hippocampus- a brain region associated with memory and emotion- atrophied significantly in people who reported undergoing life-changing religious experiences.

The study is published in the journal JAMA Psychiatry.