نقطه خدا در مغز

يكسري از عصب شناسان آمريكايي در سال 1977 يك تحقيقي رو انجام دادن و مركزي رو توي مغر پيدا كردند كه مربوط به خداست لينكش اينجاست

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اونا معتقدن بخاطر اين نقطه هستش كه آدما ياد خدا ميوفتن

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كل مطلب رو اينجا ميارم تا بخونيد

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'God spot' is found in brain

by Steve Connor
Science Correspondent
LA Times, Wednesday 29 October 1997

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SCIENTISTS believe they have discovered a "God module" in the brain which could be responsible for man's evolutionary instinct to believe in religion.

A study of epileptics who are known to have profoundly spiritual experiences has located a circuit of nerves in the front of the brain which appears to become electrically active when they think about God.

The scientists said that although the research and its conclusions are preliminary, initial results suggest that the phenomenon of religious belief is "hard-wired" into the brain.

Epileptic patients who suffer from seizures of the brain's frontal lobe said they frequently experience intense mystical episodes and often become obsessed with religious spirituality.

A team of neuroscientists from the University of California at San Diego said the most intriguing explanation is that the seizure causes an overstimulation of the nerves in a part of the brain dubbed the "God module".

"There may be dedicated neural machinery in the temporal lobes concerned with religion. This may have evolved to impose order and stability on society," the team reported at a conference last week.

The results indicate that whether a person believes in a religion or even in God may depend on how enhanced is this part of the brain's electrical circuitry, the scientists said.

Dr Vilayanur Ramachandran, head of the research team, said the study involved comparing epileptic patients with normal people and a group who said they were intensely religious.

Electrical monitors on their skin ­ a standard test for activity in the brain's temporal lobes ­ showed that the epileptics and the deeply religious displayed a similar response when shown words invoking spiritual belief.

Evolutionary scientists have suggested that belief in God, which is a common trait found in human societies around the world and throughout history, may be built into the brain's complex electrical circuitry as a Darwinian adaptation to encourage co-operation between individuals.

If the research is correct and a "God module" exists, then it might suggest that individuals who are atheists could have a differently configured neural circuit.

A spokesman for Richard Harries, the Bishop of Oxford, said whether there is a "God module" is a question for scientists, not theologians. "It would not be surprising if God had created us with a physical facility for belief," he said.

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National News
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Copyright © 1997 The Seattle Times Company
Wednesday, Oct. 29, 1997

Brain region may be linked to religion

by Robert Lee Hotz
Los Angeles Times

NEW ORLEANS - No one knows why humanity felt its first religious stirrings, but researchers at University of California at San Diego reported yesterday that the human brain may be hard-wired to hear the voice of heaven, in what researchers said was the first effort to address the neural basis of religious expression.

In an experiment with patients suffering from an unusual form of epilepsy, researchers at the UC San Diego brain and perception laboratory found that the parts of the brain's temporal lobe - which the scientists quickly dubbed the "God module" - may affect how intensely a person responds to religious beliefs.

People suffering this type of seizure have long reported intense mystical and religious experiences as part of their attacks but also are unusually preoccupied with mystical thoughts between seizures. That led this team to use these patients as a way of investigating the relationship between the physical structure of the brain and spiritual experiences.

In a carefully designed experiment, the researchers found that one effect of the patients' seizures was to strengthen their brain's involuntary response to religious words, leading the scientists to suggest a portion of the brain was naturally attuned to ideas about a supreme being.

"It is not clear why such dedicated neural machinery . . . for religion may have evolved," the team reported yesterday at a meeting of the Society for Neuroscience in New Orleans. One possibility, the scientists said, was to encourage tribe loyalty or reinforce kinship ties or the stability of a closely knit clan.

The scientists emphasized that their findings in no way suggest that religion is simply a matter of brain chemistry. "These studies do not in any way negate the validity of religious experience or God," the team said. "They merely provide an explanation in terms of brain regions that may be involved."

Until recently, most neuroscientists confined their inquiries to research aimed at alleviating the medical problems that affect the brain's health, and to attempts to fathom its fundamental neural mechanisms. Emboldened by their growing understanding of how the brain works, however, scientists are now investigating the relationship between the brain, human consciousness and a range of intangible mental experiences.

Craig Kinsely, an expert in psychology and neuroscience at the University of Richmond in Virginia, called the new study "intriguing."

"People have been tickling around the edges of consciousness, and this sort of research plunges in," Kinsely said. "There is the quandary of whether the mind created God or God created the mind. This is going to shake people up, but (any conclusion) is very premature."

Vilayanur Ramachandran, the senior scientist involved in the experiment and the director of the center for brain and cognition at UC San Diego, said, "We are skating on thin ice. We are only starting to look at this.

"The exciting thing is that you can even begin to contemplate scientific experiments on the neural basis of religion and God."