İnanca dair önermelerle bilimsel önermelere verilen tepkilerin nörogörüntülemesi
Abstract
Neuroimaging of religious belief was not well studied. Also, differences between religious and non-religious belief such as ethical beliefs is vague. In our study, we sought to examine neural activation patterns of religious participants to different types of beliefs. We recruited 22 healthy Muslim participants. We utilized an fMRI paradigm, during eight conditions (Islamic, religious but non-Islamic, ethical and knowledge statements with two truth values). Responses were analyses according to an event-related design. Conditions were short belief statements which participants answered with a button. Preprocessing steps (preprocessing-realignment, slice timing correction, normalization, spatial smoothing) were taken. Blood oxygen level-dependent (BOLD) signal changes were analyzed and contrasted with a general full flexible factorial design between conditions. Whole Brain analyses were conducted. All images were thresholded at Z>2.3, P≤0.05, family-wise error (FWE) corrected. İslamic versus non-Islamic belief was associated with greater BOLD signals at anterior cingulate cortex. Religious versus non-religious belief was related to bilateral posterior cingulate, precuneus which is part of default mode network. Islamıc versus ethical belief was not associated witn a salient difference in any network between two conditions. Knowledge versus Islamic belief was related most for word processing and working memory. Also, disbelief was associated with bilateral insular activations when compared with belief. Another interesting finding was about the importance of religious orientation on error monitoring. İt was found that internal orientation was inversely correlated with anterior cingulate cortex activation where external orientation was positively correlated. İt can be concluded that midline structures seem to be associated with religious belief when compared with non-religious propositions. These areas are associated with self-related thinking and emotional associations and episodic memories. These parts of the brain are also deep regions of the brain. Contrastly, non-religious statements were mostly related to cortical areas which are mostly associated with word recognition and working memory. İt seems than religious people have a different activation pattern towards religious and non-religious beliefs such as ethical versus faith. Finally, it can be said that religious orientation may have a regulating effect on negative or positive responses to erroneous conditions such as blasphemous stimuli.