Prayer As An Interpersonal Relationship: A Neuroimaging Study

Religion, Brain & Behavior
ISSN: 2153-599X (Print) 2153-5981 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rrbb20
Prayer as an interpersonal relationship: A

neuroimaging study
Raymond L. Neubauer
To cite this article: Raymond L. Neubauer (2014) Prayer as an interpersonal
relationship: A neuroimaging study, Religion, Brain & Behavior, 4:2, 92-103, DOI:
10.1080/2153599X.2013.768288
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Published online: 03 Apr 2013.
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Date: 27 December 2015, At: 16:20
Religion, Brain & Behavior, 2014

Vol. 4, No. 2, 92103, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/2153599X.2013.768288
Prayer as an interpersonal relationship: A neuroimaging study

Raymond L. Neubauer*
Downloaded by [Macquarie University] at 16:20 27 December 2015
School of Biological Sciences, University of Texas, Austin, USA

This fMRI study describes neural correlates of prayer during periods in which
people report in after-scan surveys that they felt the presence of God. Participants
were part of a broad movement in modern Christianity that goes by various terms
such as Pentecostal, charismatic, or spirit-filled. For them, the presence of God is
a strong and immediate experience during improvised, personal prayer. Prayer
was compared to imaginatively speaking to a loved one, a significant other in the
persons life, and to a ground state of visualizing and naming a parade of animals.
Results show an overlap between prayer and speaking to a loved one in brain
areas associated with theory of mind, suggesting that the brain treats both as an
interpersonal relationship. These brain areas are also associated with the default
mode network, where the mind evaluates past and possible future experiences of
the self. It is suggested that the high personal significance that participants attach
to prayer experiences is due in part to their taking place in core areas of selfunderstanding.
Keywords: fMRI; theory of mind; default mode network; self; Christianity;
prayer
Introduction
At the core of many religions is some form of prayer. In The Varieties of Religious
Experience, William James (1902/1985, p. 365) defined prayer as every kind of
inward communion or conversation with the power recognized as divine. The terms
communion and conversation imply a two-way relationship whereby the
individual makes his/her thoughts known to a deity and in some way feels a response.
The core of this experience, that precise moment when the individual feels in
contact with the divine, is difficult to capture because it is a fleeting and highly
personal event. It has been attempted in only a small number of neuroimaging
studies. While Michael Persinger (1984) has for years applied weak, complex
magnetic fields to the temporal lobes and evoked the sensed presence of a Sentient
Being that he associates with the presence of God, his EEG studies are not specific
enough to localize the effect beyond a general temporoparietal area. Andrew
Newberg and colleagues have studied prayer using radioactive tracers in single
photon emission computed tomography (SPECT), but their sample sizes are
small, with three Franciscan nuns in one study and five Pentecostals in another
(Newberg, Pourdehnad, Alavi, & dAquili, 2003; Newberg, Wintering, Morgan, &
Waldman, 2006). Elsewhere, a study asked Carmelite nuns to remember and relive
the most intense mystical experience of their lives, then compared this with their
most intense state of union with another human being (Beauregard & Paquette,
*Email: rneubauer@utexas.edu
# 2013 Taylor & Francis
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2006). Unfortunately, the nuns relied upon memory because they stated that God
cant be summoned at will (p. 187).
A study of Danish Christians sympathetic to Pentecostal prayer practices
compared improvised prayer to God with making wishes to Santa Claus (Schjoedt,
Stdkilde-Jorgensen, Geertz, & Roepstorff, 2009). This study was able to distinguish
prayer by distinctive brain activity in areas associated with theory of mind (ToM)
and proposed that theistic prayer is a kind of interpersonal relationship. The areas
activatedthe medial prefrontal cortex (MPFC), the precuneus, and the temporoparietal junction (BA 39)are also part of a larger network known as the default
mode network (DMN) that a variety of studies have indicated is central to an
understanding of the self (Andrews-Hanna, 2012; Buckner, 2012; Northoff et al.,
2006). In the DMN, the mind ranges over past and future experiences to consider
how they relate to the self. The overlap with ToM suggests that we use our own
reactions to experiences to understand how other people might react to similar
experiences (Amodio & Frith, 2006; Benoit, Gilbert, Volle, & Burgess, 2010;
Schilbach, Eickhoff, Rska-Jagiela, Fink, & Vogeley, 2008).
The aforementioned researchers studying Danish Christians found a different
pattern of brain activity for prayer to God compared to making wishes to Santa
Claus. They attributed this difference to participants believing God to be real but not
believing in the reality of Santa Claus (Schjoedt et al., 2009). They suggested that a
third comparison would be useful between prayer and imaginatively speaking to a real
person, and they predicted that similar areas associated with ToM would be activated
both in prayer and also in the relation to a real person. The present study fills that gap
by comparing improvised, personal prayer to imaginatively speaking to a loved one,
defined as a person important in the participants life, such as a relative or best friend.
Attempting to clarify the elusive nature of prayer in a neuroimaging study,
I sought people for whom prayer is an immediate and powerful experience. They are
part of a movement in modern Christianity that is variously known as Pentecostal,
charismatic, or spirit-filled. While the emphasis upon ecstatic worship and direct
contact by the individual with God through prayer began in Pentecostal denominations, it has expanded as movements within mainline churches, as well as a variety of
non-denominational congregations. Within Catholicism, people who practice this
style of worship are known as charismatics (Grim, 2009). The hypothesis was that
people for whom prayer is such a powerful and immediate experience would provide
insight into which areas of the brain are active when people state that they feel the
presence of God, and that this might also provide insight into why many religious
people consider prayer such an important activity in their lives.
Methods
Participants
Volunteers were recruited from local prayer groups and churches. Many of these
churches were non-denominational. In a post-scan questionnaire, all participants
(n = 14) reported they had an active prayer life for at least four years, and 57% said
10 years or more. Ages ranged from 19 to 62 years (mean age=34), with eight females
and six males.
All participants described themselves as either Pentecostal, charismatic, or spiritfilled. They are part of a broad movement in modern Christianity that is sometimes
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R.L. Neubauer
referred to in scholarly literature as renewalist. Pentecostal-style renewalist

congregations are one of the fastest growing segments of global Christianity, making
up about a quarter of approximately 2 billion Christians in the world (Pew Forum,
2006). In 1910, there were about 1 million renewalist Christians worldwide; by 2009,
they numbered about 614 million, many in churches of large size (Cox, 1995;
Johnson, 2009).
A survey of 1,827 members of a Pentecostal denomination, the Assemblies of
God, found that 85% reported feeling the unmistakable presence of God during
prayer on at least some days (Poloma & Green, 2010). Nor is such an interpersonal
relationship with God unusual in modern America as a whole, evidenced by a 2005
survey of 1,721 Americans conducted by the Gallup Organization for the Baylor
Religion Survey (2006), which found that 71.5% pray at least once a week and that
54.4% believe God is highly involved in their daily lives, in either an authoritarian or
benevolent way.
All participants in the present study were right-handed, with no reported history
of psychiatric disorders. None reported taking any mood-altering medicines, such as
antidepressants. All reviewed and signed the informed consent form of the
Institutional Review Board of the University of Texas. Participants were paid $25
for completing the study.
Of 16 people who originally volunteered, two had to be dropped due to problems
of data recovery. For similar reasons, one of the three runs in each scan had to be
dropped for two other individuals in the study (see below). Their results are based
statistically on two runs instead of three.
Conditions and procedures
The study used a block design with three conditions: (A) active prayer (90 seconds);
(B) imagining and silently speaking to a loved one (90 seconds); and (C) imagining
and naming animals (35 seconds). These are elaborated below:
(A) Active prayer: A pre-trial survey identified individuals who felt they could
evoke the presence of God within 90 seconds of starting prayer. People were asked to
pray in their usual way, but silently and without moving their mouths or the rest of
the body. Participants were also preferentially chosen for utilizing visual imagery
during prayer, either through imagining Jesus or through an imaginative sense of
Gods presence during some part of silent prayer.
(B) Loved one: The loved one was defined as a close personal friend with whom
the participant had a non-sexual relationship, such as a relative or best friend.
Participants were asked to imagine that person was present and to silently express
their love and gratitude for ways in which that person has helped them.
(C) Animals: Participants were asked to imagine a variety of animals and name
them one by one in a kind of parade in a continuous series for 35 seconds. This
condition was used as a baseline for comparisons with the other conditions.
Each condition therefore had both a visual and verbal (interior speech) component.
Each run had three iterations of each condition, such as ABC, ABC, ABC, with
30 seconds of rest between runs. There were three runs for each participant, with the
conditions presented in a pseudo-randomized order. Thus, each of the three runs
began with a different condition, and no pattern was repeated until all possible
95
combinations of the three conditions had been used with all the participants. Three
runs per person resulted in nine iterations of each condition for each individual.
Together with two structural scans, this took about 50 minutes per participant. The
start of each condition was announced with a five-second sign on the scanners
projection screen, and then the screen went blank (light blue). Instructions were given
visually for the start and end of each condition, so participants were asked to keep
their eyes open during the runs. Visual instructions were used to avoid the problem of
hearing spoken instructions over the scanner noise. Right after the scan, participants
filled out a multiple-choice questionnaire about their experiences in the scanner and
about their prayer lives in general.
The 30-second rest period at the end of each run was otherwise undefined. Unlike
during the test conditions, participants could have their eyes open or closed while at
rest. As religious people, they may also have prayed during the rest periods. Rest,
therefore, was considered an unreliable condition for comparisons.
On each of the three days before the scans, participants were asked to practice the
three conditions for a total of 20 minutes at home while lying down and looking at a
blank area of the ceiling. There was also one practice session in the mock scanner
room at the imaging center anywhere from one to three days before the actual scans.
In the mock scanner, participants were shown a screen with instructions for each
condition to make sure they could see them plainly, and they were able to practice the
three conditions while a recording simulated scanner noise.
Data acquisition and analysis
Data acquisition was performed on a 3T functional magnetic resonance imaging
(fMRI) scanner using an eight-channel phased array head coil. A multi-echo
GRAPPA parallel imaging EPI sequence developed at Stanford was used. T2*
functional echo planer (EPI) images were collected utilizing whole-head coverage
with slice orientation to reduce artifacts (oblique angle, TR = 2s, three shot,
TE = 30ms, 36 axial slices oriented for best whole-head coverage, acquisition voxel
size = 3.125 !3.125 !3 mm with a 0.3 mm inter-slice gap, flip angle = 90, FOV =
25.6, matrix = 96!96). The first four EPI volumes were discarded to allow scans to
reach equilibrium.
In addition to EPI images during the three experimental runs, two highresolution T1 SPGR scans were acquired that were empirically optimized for high
contrast between grey matter (GM) and white matter (WM), and between GM and
cerebrospinal fluid (CSF). These images were acquired in the sagittal plane using a
1.3 mm slice thickness with 1.0 mm3 in plane resolution. The functional scans of the
three experimental runs together with the two structural scans took about 50
minutes. In all cases, instructions were viewed utilizing a back-projection screen and a
mirror mounted on the top of the head coil.
Data were analyzed using standard techniques for fMRI block designs, using the
FEAT analysis package (Smith, 2001). The following pre-processing steps were
conducted on imaging data: the data were skull stripped, motion corrected, spatially
smoothed using an 8 mm FWFM Gaussian kernel, and a high-pass filter at 160s was
applied. General Linear Model (GLM) analysis was conducted on pre-processed
data. Registration of mean functional image to standard MNI space was done with a
three-stage registration process. First-level design matrices contained regressors for
prayer, loved ones, animals, and rest. Each of these conditions was modeled as a
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R.L. Neubauer
stick function convolved with a hemodynamic response. The duration of the

hemodynamic response was modeled as the actual duration of each condition (90s
prayer, 90s loved one, 35s animals, 30s rest). Using FLAME, first-level analysis was
within a run, second-level combined runs within a subject using fixed effects, and
third-level was group analysis for each condition. Cluster correction with a voxelwise cluster-forming threshold of z = 2.3 and corrected extent threshold of p < .05
was used to control for multiple comparisons.
Results
fMRI results
Table 1 lists all areas showing significant activations for contrasts set at a threshold
of p < .05 corrected. The two largest areas of activation in both prayer > baseline and
loved one > baseline are the medial prefrontal cortex (BA 9, 10) and the posterior
cingulate (BA 31). Each has been identified as a core area of both ToM and the
DMN (Andrews-Hanna, 2012). Activation in the temporal lobe (BA 39) is near the
temporoparietal junction. Overall brain activation is decidedly biased to the left
hemisphere, but more so for prayer > baseline than for loved one > baseline. As
shown in Figure 1C and 1D, prayer overlaps areas activated by speaking to a loved
one, but occupies more restricted areas. Yet peak activations, as shown by MNI
coordinates in Table 1, are near each other for the two conditions in the medial
prefrontal cortex (BA 10), the precuneus (BA 31), and the parietal lobe (BA 39).
Activations for prayer > baseline are entirely within the area of loved one > baseline,
so a third color was not deemed necessary to show overlaps in Figure 1.
Table 1. Regions showing significant differences in BOLD signal between conditions (p < .05
corrected). Peak areas within a cluster are listed in MNI coordinates.
MNI (peak)
Study contrasts
Prayer > baseline
Loved one > baseline
Region
Medial prefrontal
cortex
Posterior cingulate
Precuneous
Parietal lobe
Medial prefrontal
cortex
Anterior cingulate
Posterior cingulate
Precuneous
Prayer > loved one
Loved one > prayer
Parietal lobe
Juxtapositional
lobule
Insular cortex
Frontal pole
Precuneous
Side BA
Cluster
size
b
l
l
l
l
b
l
b
b
l
b
b
b
l
b
10 "2
56
9 "8
64
31 "4 "52
31 "2 "62
39 "52 "64
10 "2
56
10 "2
68
9 "4
56
9
6
58
32
0
44
23 "2 "48
31
0 "64
7 "2 "66
39 "52 "66
6
8 "6
10
24
28
30
22
6
16
8
8
2
26
32
36
24
58
1022
513
4.32
3.10
3.24
3.31
3.77
4.70
4.50
4.30
4.43
3.96
4.0
4.02
4.16
3.36
3.14
l
r
b
13 "38
18 "6
11
6
56 "22
31 "2 "56
30
589
1713
2637
3.35
3.49
3.94
1921
660
533
4068
2137
97
Figure 1. (A, B) Regions showing BOLD signal increase for the contrast loved one >
baseline. (C, D) Regions showing BOLD signal increase for the contrast prayer > baseline
(yellow) and their overlap with activations for loved one > baseline (blue).
Note: Left side of the brain indicated with (L). All contrasts set at a threshold of p < .05
corrected.
The contrast of prayer > loved one has two new areas of activation: the
juxtapositional lobule (BA 6) and the insular cortex (BA 13). The involvement of
the insula may explain the higher emotional valence felt during prayer over that felt
while speaking to a loved one, shown in the after-scan survey results. The reverse
contrast of loved one > prayer shows wide activations in the frontal pole (BA 11) and
the precuneus (BA 31).
After-scan survey results

Fourteen people filled out a multiple-choice survey after the scan, but not all
questions were answered. Based on the survey results, prayer clearly appears to be a
reciprocal relationship for these individuals. Unless otherwise noted, the following
percentages in this section are of the responses made by all 14 participants.
All participants described their faith as either Pentecostal, charismatic, or spiritfilled. Ninety-two percent reported that during a typical time of prayer in daily life,
they felt the presence of God within one minute or less of starting prayer.
All reported that they could feel the presence of God while praying during at least
some of the scans. Of the nine separate times they were asked to pray over the three
runs, 57% felt Gods presence in all of them, 21% for 8090% of the iterations, 14%
for 75% of the iterations, and 7% for 50% of the iterations.
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R.L. Neubauer
When asked to compare prayer in the scanner to their normal prayer life in terms
of how close they felt to God, using 1 for lowest and 5 for highest, 57% rated their
experience in the scanner 4, 36% rated 3, and 7% rated 2.
When asked, In all your prayer times, about how often do you feel God is
speaking to you? 14% chose 90% or more of the time, 21% chose about 75% of
the time, 29% chose about 50% of the time, and 36% chose 25% or less of the
time. Percentages were defined in the question so that 50%, for example, meant in
of all your prayer times. God speaking was defined as actual words rather than
just a feeling and included words in the form of an inner voice rather than an
external one.
Prayer is also a significant activity in the lives of these individuals. Thirty-eight
percent of respondents considered prayer the most important activity in their lives,
and the remaining 62% considered it among the most important (n = 13). Of all
fourteen participants, 79% said prayer was the condition they experienced most
powerfully in the scanner, while only 21% listed speaking to a loved one first.
Given a choice between a family member and a close friend, all participants chose
family members: 71% a parent, 21% a child, and 7% a sibling.
All participants reported experiencing visual images of God in 75% or more of
the nine separate times that they prayed in the scanner, and a slightly smaller set of
71% reported visual images of God during all of their prayers. Similarly, 79%
reported visual imagery every time they addressed their loved one, and all 14
reported visual imagery in at least 75% of the times.
Discussion
This study shows that for a group of religious Christians, the brain areas activated
during prayer to God overlap with areas activated during spontaneous speech to a
loved one or to a significant person in their lives. This overlap takes place in areas
associated with ToM, suggesting that the brain treats both as a kind of interpersonal
relationship.
Meta-analyses show that the three brain regions found active in this studythe
medial prefrontal cortex (BA 9, 10), the posterior cingulate cortex (BA 31), and the
parietal lobe near the temporoparietal junction (BA 39)have consistently been
associated with tasks that involve social cognition or ToM (Andrews-Hanna, 2012;
Spreng, Mar, & Kim, 2009; Van Overwalle, 2009). ToM, also called mentalizing,
refers to thinking about the intentions, beliefs, and desires of others (Buckner,
Andrews-Hanna, & Schacter, 2008). It has been suggested that we use ourselves as a
surrogate to understand the minds of other people. By considering our own reactions
to experiences, we are able to estimate and understand the reactions of others to
similar experiences.
These three brain areas are also part of a cluster of brain regions known as the
DMN. The DMN is involved in introspective thought, especially as it relates to the
self. During such thought, the mind ranges over the past and future, ruminating over
prior experiences and planning possible future activities (Andrews-Hanna, 2012;
Benoit et al., 2010; Northoff et al., 2006). Moreover, a large part of introspective
thought concerns our relationships to others and our place in a social network
(Schilbach et al., 2008). It is not surprising, therefore, that ToM activities overlap the
DMN. A meta-analysis of 51 brain-imaging studies found extensive functional
overlap between autobiographical memory and ToM that mainly involved areas of
99
the DMN (Spreng & Mar, 2012; Spreng et al., 2009). Another meta-analysis found
that the activities associated with both mentalizing and self-knowledge largely
overlap in BA 9 and 10 on the MPFC (Amodio & Frith, 2006). A study of trait
words applicable either to the self or to a best friend found largely overlapping areas
of activation in the MPFC and the posterior cingulate cortex (PCC) and nearby
precuneus (Benoit et al., 2010). Compared to a baseline of counting syllables, the
overlaps were also largely left-lateralized. These areas are strikingly similar to the
areas of overlap discovered in the present study. Also, the strength of MPFC
activation in judging another person was directly correlated with the degree to which
that person possessed traits similar to oneself, again indicating overlap in thinking
about self and others. It should be noted, however, that Benoit et al. observed
activations in the temporal lobes not found in this report.
In a recent review that synthesizes structural and functional imaging studies of
the DMN, Andrews-Hanna (2012) found the MPFC and the PCC to be core hubs
for both ToM activity and introspection about the self. Both of these areas displayed
the largest activations in comparison to baseline in the current prayer study and also
in a study of improvised prayer among Danish Christians (Schjoedt et al., 2009).
These central hubs each have branching subsystems that functionally connect to a
variety of brain areas, depending on the specific task involved (Andrews-Hanna,
2012). The dorsal MPFC subsystem, for example, is active in ToM, social reasoning,
and conceptual processing. It might include the temporoparietal junction, temporal
pole, or lateral temporal cortex, depending on the particular task. But in each case,
the central cores of the MPFC and the PCC are active.
In their study of Danish Christians sympathetic to Pentecostal practices, Schjoedt
et al. (2009) concluded that improvised prayer is a form of interpersonal relationship
because it recruited areas of social cognition. The present study reinforces that
conclusion in showing an overlap in brain activation patterns between prayer and
imaginatively addressing a loved one in the participants life. All participants
reported feeling the presence of God while praying in the scanner (see Results). Thus,
something like a reciprocal relationship is taking place because they feel a response
to their prayers. It is interesting that this takes place in areas related to ToM, where
we try to understand the thoughts of others.
If a relationship to God is another kind of interpersonal relationship, we might
find an effect in people with difficulties in social relations. A recent study found that
autistic individuals were only 11% as likely to believe in God as matched neurotypical controls, and this relationship persisted after controlling statistically for IQ.
Mentalizingas assessed by parents rating their autistic child in terms of interest in
others beliefs and desires and in terms of the childs understanding of emotion
proved to be an independent, robust predictor of belief in a personal God
(Norenzayan, Gervais, & Trzesniewski, 2012). For autism, a similar effect applies
to the DMN, and lower default network activity tracks social dysfunction in a linear
fashion. Those with the greatest social impairment have the most atypical ventral
MPFC activity (Buckner et al., 2008).
Personal significance of prayer
All participants in this study described prayer as the most significant or among the
most significant activities in their lives (see Results). This may be related to the
central role the DMN appears to play in an understanding of self.
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R.L. Neubauer
The DMN is anti-correlated with attention to external activities. There appears to

be a limited amount of energy available for mentation, and it can be expended either
on activities orientated toward the external world or on evaluating experiences
introspectively. Surveys indicate we spend a large fraction of time on introspective
thought, as much as 3050% of daily life (Andrews-Hanna, Reidler, Huang, &
Buckner, 2010; DArgembeau, Lardi, & Van der Linden, 2012; Killingsworth &
Gilbert, 2010). These are not just daydreams, but highly significant personal and
goal-directed thoughts related to the recent past or near future (Andrews-Hanna,
2012). Some researchers have suggested this area represents a core of the self, where
we consolidate past experience and make plans for the future (Andrews-Hanna,
2012; DArgembeau, Jedidi et al., 2012; Northoff et al., 2006).
The high significance attached to prayer by participants in this present study may
be related to the fact that it touches a core area of the self. As mentioned above,
participants feel that God is actually responding to their prayer, and all reported
feeling the presence of God for at least part of the time while praying inside the
scanner. For these individuals, the creator and sustainer of the universe is responding
to their petitions. This understanding, coupled with activation in what appears to be
a central area of the self, may be what makes the experience feel highly significant. It
also might explain the fact that 79% reported that prayer was the condition they
experienced most powerfully during the runs in the scanner (see Results).
The left-side bias for personal prayer found in both the present study and the
study of Danish Christians (Schjoedt et al., 2009) may also be related to a central
understanding of the self. Some studies of split-brain patients have indicated that the
left hemisphere interprets experience and puts together a narrative that best explains
events. For example, if the left eye and right eye view different scenes, the subject will
offer an explanation based on events seen by the left hemisphere. Based on this,
Roser and Gazzaniga (2004) suggested that the left hemisphere interpreter, a
region where primary language centers are also located, may be responsible for our
sense of unified conscious experience.
While personal prayer has a greater left-hemisphere bias than speaking to a loved
one, its overall area of activation is smaller in area (see Table 1). Participants were
asked to have some visual sense of the presence of both the loved one and God. One
would expect that a close family member would be easier to visualize than God, yet
no areas of the visual cortex show up in the contrast of loved one > prayer. However,
the DMN has been shown to be a general imaginative area where one constructs
scenes (Daselaar, Porat, Huijbers, & Pennartz, 2010), and the larger areas activated
for loved one > baseline than for prayer > baseline may reflect the greater ease and
detail with which one can imagine a close family member compared to God.
The study of Danish Christians also found that the brain makes a distinction
between real and imagined persons (Schjoedt et al., 2009). Prayer was compared to
making wishes to Santa Claus, and post-scan interviews demonstrated that all
subjects reported a belief in God but not in Santa Claus. They visualized God in
human form and believed that He answers prayers. The comparison of making
wishes to Santa Claus > personal prayer activated areas outside the classic
DMN, with as many right- as left-hemisphere areas. Other studies of imagination
further substantiate the brains ability to distinguish between real and fictitious
persons or conditions (Abraham, von Cramon, & Schubotz, 2008; Benoit et al.,
2010; Harris, Sheth, & Cohen, 2008; Hassabis, Kumaran, & Maguire, 2007).
Abraham et al. (2008) contrasted imaginatively meeting George Bush versus
101
Cinderella. The real > fictional person activated areas of the DMN: MPFC (BA 10)
and posterior cingulate/precuneus (BA 31/23); while fictional > real person activated
non-DMN areas: inferior frontal gyrus (BA 45, 47) and medial occipital gyrus (BA
18). The results of the present study show an activation overlap in areas associated
with the DMN between speaking to an important person in the individuals personal
life and addressing God, indicating that the participant considers both to be real.
Limitations
While it might be objected that this study shows prayer to be just another form of
imaginative experience, this alone does not explain the deep significance that prayer
has for the participants. Moreover, a variety of studies indicate that the brain makes a
distinction between imagining real and fictitious persons or events, as demonstrated
by the specific areas that are activated (Abraham et al., 2008; Benoit et al., 2010;
Daselaar et al., 2010; Harris et al., 2008; Hassabis et al., 2007). All participants in the
present study imagined a member of the family as their loved one, and the fact that
prayer activated overlapping areas with speaking to these loved ones suggests that
God may be as real to these individuals as a member of their own family.
Although prayer does appear to activate brain areas associated with ToM and the
DMN, this study does not explore the functional connectivity between these brain
areas and only shows that they are both active within the 90s periods of prayer and
speaking to a loved one. Similarly, the direction of causation cannot be determined
from this study. It cannot be determined whether the feeling of significance
associated with prayer leads to the activation of certain brain areas, or whether
activating those areas leads to a feeling of significance. This latter issue is entangled
with the mindbody problem, which must be explored in a more philosophical paper.
Another objection might be that this study surveys a fairly limited population:
people who identify with the renewalist Christian movement. It would be interesting
to know whether informal, personal prayer activates the same brain areas in other
monotheist religions that do not view God in as distinctly human terms, such as
Judaism and Islam.
Finally, the present results average BOLD signals over the entire time course of
each condition. A more precise study might identify those segments of prayer when
the individual felt the presence of God most strongly. A future experiment, for
example, might distinguish intervals of heightened spiritual experience from less
intense periods by giving participants a button to push.
Conclusion
This study shows brain areas that are active when a group of highly religious
Christians report that they feel the presence of God during prayer. Improvised prayer
was compared to imaginatively speaking to a loved one and to a baseline of naming
animals. Prayer and speaking to a loved one overlap in areas related to ToM in the
brain. This indicates that the mind treats both experiences as a kind of interpersonal
relationship. These areas are also central parts of the DMN, where a person
introspectively evaluates the past and future possibilities for the self. It is suggested
that the high personal significance that prayer holds in the lives of these individuals
relates to experiencing the presence of God in a central area of the self.
102
R.L. Neubauer
Historically, religion has provided a strong sense of identity to people and has
also promoted social cooperation among believers. The very act of sharing an
experience with others that is profoundly meaningful to the self probably promotes
social bonding. This would likely be reinforced when the experience activates brain
areas involved in understanding and responding to the minds of others. Thus, inward
experiences may enhance outward social practices. Ultimately, the personal identity
provided to adherents and the cohesion promoted within large social groups may
help to explain the persistence of religion throughout history.
Acknowledgments
This study was supported in part by a grant of time on the 3T GE scanner as part of graduate
training by the Dept. of Psychology, University of Texas at Austin. I am grateful to Dr. David
Schnyer for help in designing the protocol and for advice on analysis. I am indebted to Dr.
Tyler Davis for writing the computer program that ran the experiment in the scanner and for
advice on data analysis and issues in this paper.
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