Is spirituality just an area in the cerebrum?

IIs spirituality just an area in the cerebrum? Italian scientists from the University of Udine have studied changes in self-transcendence in patients after cerebral tumor surgery on the posterior parietal lobe.

Italian scientists from the University of Udine have studied changes in self-transcendence in patients after cerebral tumor surgery on the posterior parietal lobe. They have now published their findings in the US journal Neuron (Volume 65, Issue 3, Feb. 11, 2010) under the title "The Spiritual Brain: Selective Cortical Reading Modules Human Self-Transcendence". The researchers led by study leader Cosimo Urgesi, a neuroscientist and psychobiologist from the University of Udine, examined about 70 patients with glioma or meningioma before and after an operative tumor intervention.

Conclusion was that injuries in the cerebrum in the posterior parietal lobe increased the self-transcendence of those affected. Self-transcendence is a description of how a human being can feel that he belongs not only to himself, but to himself as part of a larger context. In an intervention in the front of the brain, the sense of self-transcendence declined slightly, while in a control group without nerve tissue removal, it remained unchanged. Also, it does not seem to matter if the left or right area is approached during the operation.

The Italian physicians concluded that the areas of the brain affected by the surgery had a spiritual effect on a person. And the researchers want to go even further: Future investigations will show whether inhibition of activity in the posterior parietal lobe can reduce self-transcendence.

The sensational effect of their findings is that a hitherto as little rational and non-scientific phenomenon as that of faith, spirituality and religiosity can now be biologically translated and possibly mechanically influenced. (Thorsten Fischer, Naturopath Osteopathy, 13.02.2010)