Vampyric

I remember reading (I think it was here) about a part of the brain that is associated with religeous experiences and the like. My sister wants to give a presentation about it for her neuropsychology course and I was wondering if you guys could direct me to some sites with information about it?

Thanks in advance

Vampyric

Dr.GH

Search on induced dissocitive states. There is a lot of bull shit to wade through.

Plebe

Ever hear of Broca's Brain or Wernicke's area?

To get you started, here's a Newsweek article link
<a href="http://www.rickross.com/reference/general/general380.html" target="_blank">http://www.rickross.com/reference/general/general380.html</a>

I'm rusty on my Anatomy and Physiology, but if I recall right, Wernicke's is for speech [comprehension]. The brain is an interdependent organ structure and things like PET scans would show the activity in parts of the brain during what are described as religious or mystical experiences and too, Psychiatric disorders such as the Schizophrenic/disocciative and in brain pathologies such as strokes, tumors or from trauma. Of equal interest as it relates to this area of study is Synesthesia, we're talking about individual perception and experience being the result of the brain itself! <a href="http://search.dmoz.org/cgi-bin/search?search=synesthesia" target="_blank">http://search.dmoz.org/cgi-bin/search?search=synesthesia</a> The ability of people to grasp abstract concepts such as the ability to love or empathize for example are directly related to the state of our neurological and psychological health-Psychology and Psychiatry being yet other areas for "hot" debate..
PS: I just did a little more detailed reading and Broca's area is involved in speech "motor control," see this basic description <a href="http://faculty.washington.edu/chudler/lang.html" target="_blank">http://faculty.washington.edu/chudler/lang.html</a> Hopefully this little bit of findings will help your sister with her paper, I would suggest she find photos of PET scans of patients with various Psychiatric disorders which I'm sure her University library will have plenty of or maybe the University website, JAMA, etc..

[ September 08, 2002: Message edited by: Plebe ]</p>

CRDbulldog

Er... actually Broca's area is concerned with the motor control of speech and Wernicke's area is concerned with speech comprehension.

Broca's area is in the frontal lobe right in front of the part of the precentral gyrus that contains the motor control of the mouth. People with a lesion of Broca's area present with EXPRESSIVE APHASIA -- an inability to form words. They do however understand what is said to them. Thus, if you ask a person with Broca's aphasia to point to a pencil on a table he will be able to do so. If you ask him what the object he just pointed to is called he may say something like "Brak", which is what he would answer to any question you give him.

On the other hand, Wernicke's area is located in the temporal lobe adjacent to the primary auditory cortex and seems to be the area responsible for interpreting speech. If you were to ask a person with Wernicke's aphasia to point to a pencil, he may look at you and smile. If you point to a pencil and ask him what that is he may say some nonsense like "Right pony log capable Jack roading puppy taper" but he would say it with panache.

Neither of these areas are supposed to contain the nucleus (a conglomeration of cells in the brain responsible for a particular function) associated with religious experience. This theory was presented a while back by Newberg and D'Aquili. They wrote a book for the public. You can find it on Amazon.com

<a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/034544034X/qid=1031452864/sr=2-1/104-2433056-0111907?v=glance&s=books" target="_blank">here</a>

Plebe

CRDBulldog, thanks for the corrections which I have made in my post immediately above yours. I decided to click your profile and appreciate the input from a medical professional such as yourself! My career background is finance and real estate-I haven't 'cracked a text book' on Science or Medicine in years[apx.15?!]
From what little reading I've done about the brain and personal perception it continually reinforces a materialist comprehension of reality.

cricket

There's an interesting book by VS Ramachandran that discusses temporal lobes and religiosity: Phantoms in the Brain.

Keith Russell

Greetings:

Whatever it is, my brain seems to be lacking it.

Not a problem, that...

Keith.

Blankman

try <a href="http://www.godpart.com" target="_blank">www.godpart.com</a>

Plebe

<a href="http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1101020930-353578,00.html" target="_blank">http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1101020930-353578,00.html</a>
Scientists "Hit The O-Spot For Out-Of-Body" This was released today at Time.com
It would not surprise me if we see more articles which mention this part of the brain in relation to mystical experiences.

Vampyric

Thank you very much to everyone who has responded. There is heaps of good information there and with what we also found in the library and with the help of the lecturer we are close to having an information overload. <img src="graemlins/notworthy.gif" border="0" alt="[Not Worthy]" />