Spirituality and The Brain
I received an email recently from Michael Lovitch of the HypnosisNetwork with the following information. I wanted to share it with you because NLP works a lot with the brain.
A new study published in the Feb. 11 issue of the journal Neuron, has identified areas of the brain that, when damaged, leads to greater spirituality. Researchers measured subjects before removing brain tumors – and then after.
To be more specific, what they are really measuring is a construct called, “self-transcendence”. Self-transcendence demonstrates a decreased sense of self and an increase in how one views themselves as an integral part of the universe as a whole.
This trait is considered, “stable”, meaning it doesn’t change much during a person’s lifetime.
It turns out that certain damage to the left and right posterior parietal regions of the brain can actually increase someone’s level of self-transcendence”. Meaning this damage is changing an entrenched personality trait.
I can get more into the study on my blog, but it does bring up a myriad of questions about the nature of self and spirituality, and more importantly – the effect of the brain on stable personality traits.
According to Dr. Salvatore M. Aglioti from Sapienza University of Rome (one of the researchers):
“If a stable personality trait like self transcendence can undergo fast changes as a consequence of brain lesions, it would indicate that at least some personality dimensions may be modified by influencing neural activity in specific areas,… Perhaps novel approaches aimed at modulating neural activity might ultimately pave the way to new treatments of personality disorders.”
