The Scientific Study of Belief and Pain Modulation: Conceptual Problems (original) (raw)
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Synopsis of Religious Experience and Pain: A Neuroscientific and Philosophical Probe
Faith based treatments were often claimed to reduce the intensity of pain. Most often, these treatments were connected to Placebo effect. In this regards, the basic question of the probe was, "Does religious experience reduce the intensity of pain?" The method of study is most often descriptive; at times it is analytic and synthetic. The aim of the study is to provide a holistic view of understanding of pain during religious experience. Various studies of neural correlates of different types of religious experience, pain, reduction of pain and pain during religious experience were analyzed. The neuroscientific studies have concluded that there has been some activation of right ventrolateral prefrontal cortex during this process, which is unique to other means used to reduce pain. The philosophical examination shows the limitation of neuroscientific view and proposes a multidimensional conceptualisation of pain during religious experience.
An fMRI study measuring analgesia enhanced by religion as a belief system (2008)
Pain, 2008
Although religious belief is often claimed to help with physical ailments including pain, it is unclear what psychological and neural mechanisms underlie the influence of religious belief on pain. By analogy to other top-down processes of pain modulation we hypothesized that religious belief helps believers reinterpret the emotional significance of pain, leading to emotional detachment from it. Recent findings on emotion regulation support a role for the right ventrolateral prefrontal cortex (VLPFC), a region also important for driving top-down pain inhibitory circuits. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging in practicing Catholics and avowed atheists and agnostics during painful stimulation, here we show the existence of a context-dependent form of analgesia that was triggered by the presentation of an image with a religious content but not by the presentation of a non-religious image. As confirmed by behavioral data, contemplation of the religious image enabled the religious group to detach themselves from the experience of pain. Critically, this context-dependent modulation of pain specifically engaged the right VLPFC, whereas group-specific preferential liking of one of the pictures was associated with activation in the ventral midbrain. We suggest that religious belief might provide a framework that allows individuals to engage known pain-regulatory brain processes. Ó
An fMRI study measuring analgesia enhanced by religion as a belief system
Pain, 2008
Although religious belief is often claimed to help with physical ailments including pain, it is unclear what psychological and neural mechanisms underlie the influence of religious belief on pain. By analogy to other top-down processes of pain modulation we hypothesized that religious belief helps believers reinterpret the emotional significance of pain, leading to emotional detachment from it. Recent findings on emotion regulation support a role for the right ventrolateral prefrontal cortex (VLPFC), a region also important for driving top-down pain inhibitory circuits. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging in practicing Catholics and avowed atheists and agnostics during painful stimulation, here we show the existence of a context-dependent form of analgesia that was triggered by the presentation of an image with a religious content but not by the presentation of a non-religious image. As confirmed by behavioral data, contemplation of the religious image enabled the religious ...
Expectations contribute to reduced pain levels during prayer in highly religious participants
Journal of behavioral medicine, 2012
Although the use of prayer as a religious coping strategy is widespread and often claimed to have positive effects on physical disorders including pain, it has never been tested in a controlled experimental setting whether prayer has a pain relieving effect. Religious beliefs and practices are complex phenomena and the use of prayer may be mediated by general psychological factors known to be related to the pain experience, such as expectations, desire for pain relief, and anxiety. Twenty religious and twenty non-religious healthy volunteers were exposed to painful electrical stimulation during internal prayer to God, a secular contrast condition, and a pain-only control condition. Subjects rated expected pain intensity levels, desire for pain relief, and anxiety before each trial and pain intensity and pain unpleasantness immediately after on mechanical visual analogue scales. Autonomic and cardiovascular measures provided continuous non-invasive objective means for assessing the potential analgesic effects of prayer. Prayer reduced pain intensity by 34 % and pain unpleasantness by 38 % for religious participants, but not for non-religious participants. For religious participants, expectancy and desire predicted 56-64 % of the variance in pain intensity scores, but for non-religious participants, only expectancy was significantly predictive of pain intensity (65-73 %). Conversely, prayer-induced reduction in pain intensity and pain unpleasantness were not followed by autonomic and cardiovascular changes.
Scientia et Fides, 2024
In this article recent evidence from cognitive neuroscience is presented showing that believing is a central brain function. It integrates the perception of information from the environment with personal perspective taking ("what does it mean to me?") as the basis for predictive coding of action. Observing that another person becomes injured can make one believe that the pain in the injured person is similar to pain that oneself has experienced previously. This first-person perspective has been called empathy and includes primal beliefs about potentially pain eliciting objects and painful events in the sense of "what does it mean to you?". Furthermore, observing other people to suffer involves the conceptual belief that their condition is aversive and burdensome. Believing in love and peace involves the perspective of "what does it mean to us?". It is argued that contradictory events may cause the sensation of pain and suffering in the afflicted individuals resulting in mutual distrust and eventually disruption of social bonds. In conclusion, beliefs play an important, though long underestimated role in cognitive neuroscience of pain and suffering and more generally for the cultural notions of deities and evil.
Research, Society and Development, 2021
Introduction / Objective: Based on the assumption that pain can be perceived as punishment (pain = penalty), and that this concept of guilt is present in the Judeo-Christian civilization, we decided to review the literature on relevant religious and guilt - which is also a source of suffering - in the management of chronic pain. Methodology. Three searches were carried out that included all articles listed until July 2021 within the PUBMED database. MeshTerm and Boolean operators were used in the following combinations: chronic pain AND religion AND guilt NOT yoga NOT meditation; Chronic pain AND religion NOT yoga NOT meditation; chronic pain AND guilt. Results. Studies carried out in different countries point to the relevance of the chronic relationship of chronic pain to the patient, interfering in a positive way in their evolution, without, however, investigating their relationship with feelings of guilt. Conclusions. The literature is rich in articles on the influence of religio...
Spirituality and religion in pain and pain management
Health Psychology Research, 2013
Pain relief is a management problem for many patients, their families, and the medical professionals caring for them. Although everyone experiences pain to some degree, responses to it vary from one person to another. Recognizing and specifying someone else’s pain is clinically a well know challenge. Research on the biology and neurobiology of pain has given us a relationship between spirituality and pain. There is growing recognition that persistent pain is a complex and multidimensional experience stemming from the interrelations among biological, psychological, social, and spiritual factors. Patients with pain use a number of cognitive and behavioral strategies to cope with their pain, including religious/spiritual factors, such as prayers, and seeking spiritual support to manage their pain. This article provides an overview of the complex phenomenon of pain, with a focus on spiritual and religious issues in pain management.
Reduced Pain Sensation and Reduced BOLD Signal in Parietofrontal Networks during Religious Prayer
Frontiers in Human Neuroscience
Previous studies suggest that religious prayer can alter the experience of pain via expectation mechanisms. While brain processes related to other types of top-down modulation of pain have been studied extensively, no research has been conducted on the potential effects of active religious coping. Here, we aimed at investigating the neural mechanisms during pain modulation by prayer and their dependency on the opioidergic system. Twenty-eight devout Protestants performed religious prayer and a secular contrast prayer during painful electrical stimulation in two fMRI sessions. Naloxone or saline was administered prior to scanning. Results show that pain intensity was reduced by 11% and pain unpleasantness by 26% during religious prayer compared to secular prayer. Expectancy predicted large amounts (70-89%) of the variance in pain intensity. Neuroimaging results revealed reduced neural activity during religious prayer in a large parietofrontal network relative to the secular condition. Naloxone had no significant effect on ratings or neural activity. Our results thus indicate that, under these conditions, pain modulation by prayer is not opioid-dependent. Further studies should employ an optimized design to explore whether reduced engagement of the frontoparietal system could indicate that prayer may attenuate pain through a reduction in processing of pain stimulus saliency and prefrontal control rather than through known descending pain inhibitory systems.
Journal of Religion and Health, 2019
This systematic review examined the extent to which measures of religiosity/spirituality (R/S): (1) are associated with pain, function, pain-related beliefs (beliefs), coping responses, and catastrophizing in people with chronic pain; and (2) moderate the association between beliefs, coping and catastrophizing, and pain and function. Experimental and observational studies examining at least one of these research questions in adults with chronic pain were eligible. Two reviewers independently performed eligibility screening, data extraction, and quality assessment. Twenty studies were included. Most studies focused on the association between R/S and pain or function. When significant associations emerged, those between R/S and psychological function were weak to strong and positive; those between religious/ spiritual well-being and pain and physical dysfunction were negative, but weak. Few studies examined the associations between R/S and beliefs/coping/catastrophizing; none examined the moderation role of R/S. The findings suggest that R/S is associated with pain and psychological function in people with chronic pain, and that viewing oneself as being "spiritual," regardless of religion, may contribute to positive psychological adjustment. More research is needed to determine the reliability of this finding. PROSPERO registry CRD42018088803.