Psychologists have discovered it's possible to significantly change a person's beliefs simply by targeting their brain with magnets. Using what's known as transcranial magnetic stimulation, the researchers were able to temporarily shut down the part of the brain associated with detecting and solving problems.
People who were subjected to this treatment reported that their belief in God dropped by a third following the stimulation, while there was an increase in positive feelings towards immigrants.
Using transcranial magnetic stimulation (stock image), researchers were able to shut down the part of the brain in participants that helps detect and solve problems. These participants reported their belief in God dropped by a third following stimulation, while there was a also a decrease in prejudice towards immigrants
The study was carried out by Dr Keise Izuma from the University of York and Colin Holbrook from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA).
They recruited 38 participants with an average age of 21, to take part in the study.
Each of these participants said they held significant religious beliefs, and the majority held moderate to extremely conservative political beliefs.
Political views were important because it suggested they were more likely to have stronger viewpoints on immigration.
Half of these participants formed part of a control group and received a low-level 'sham' procedure that did not affect their brains.
The other half received enough energy through transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) to lower activity in the posterior medial frontal cortex (pMFC).
This part of the brain, located near the surface and roughly a few inches up from the forehead, is associated with detecting problems and triggering responses that address them. Researchers specifically targeted the posterior medial frontal cortex - known as pMFC (pictured in purple). This part of the brain, located near the surface and roughly a few inches up from the forehead, is associated with detecting problems and triggering responses that address them
Researchers specifically targeted the posterior medial frontal cortex - known as pMFC (pictured in purple). This part of the brain, located near the surface and roughly a few inches up from the forehead, is associated with detecting problems and triggering responses that address them Each of the 38 participants said they held significant religious beliefs. Half received enough energy through transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) to lower activity in the pMFC. The other half acted as a control group. People whose brains were targeted by TMS reported 32.8 per cent less belief in God, angels, or heaven
Each of the 38 participants said they held significant religious beliefs. Half received enough energy through transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) to lower activity in the pMFC. The other half acted as a control group. People whose brains were targeted by TMS reported 32.8 per cent less belief in God, angels, or heaven
Following the treatment, all the participants were first asked to think about death before being asked questions about their religious beliefs and their feelings about immigrants.
The death task including writing brief responses on the subject of their own death.
To address their levels of prejudice, participants were asked to read two essays - one critical and one positive - written by an immigrant from Latin America about the US. FLOODS AND FAMINE MAY HAVE KICKSTARTED WORLD'S RELIGIONS
They often form a central part of most biblical stories, but it appears floods, famines and plagues may have also helped to start belief in some gods in the first place.
Researchers at North Carolina State University found that belief in all-powerful and moralising gods tended to appear at times of hardship in human history.
They claim that believing in such a supreme deity helps to ensure people within a society live by certain moral rules that are necessary when living in harsh environments or in times of hardship.
The researchers studied the origins of 583 religious societies around the world.
They compared these to climate, rainfall and plant growth data for each area to build up a historical picture of the conditions each society was living in.
The findings may help to shed light on how religions such as Christianity, Judaism and Islam first emerged and why stories of hardship play such a central role.
After reading each essay, participants rated how much they liked the person who wrote the essay and how much they agreed with their views.
Religious belief was measured using a version of the Supernatural Belief Scale.
Items were presented in random order and rated according to the same scale used in the immigrant ratings.
Questions included: 'There exists an all-powerful, all-knowing, loving God', 'There exist good personal spiritual beings, whom we might call angels' and 'There exists an evil personal spiritual being, whom we might call the Devil.'
The findings, published in the journal Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, reveal that people whose brains were targeted by TMS reported 32.8 per cent less belief in God, angels, or heaven.
They were also 28.5 per cent more positive in their feelings toward an immigrant who criticised their country.
The investigators additionally found that the magnetic stimulation had the greatest effect on reactions to the critical author in the essay test.
'We think that hearing criticisms of your group's values, perhaps especially from a person you perceive as an outsider, is processed as an ideological sort of threat,' said Dr Izuma.
'One way to respond to such threats is to 'double down' on your group values, increasing your investment in them, and reacting more negatively to the critic,' he continued.
'When we disrupted the brain region that usually helps detect and respond to threats, we saw a less negative, less ideologically motivated reaction to the critical author and his opinions.' To address their levels of prejudice, participants were asked to read two essays - one critical and one positive - written by an immigrant from Latin America about the US. Following TMS treatment the participants were 28.5 per cent more positive in their feelings towards the immigrant who criticised their country
To address their levels of prejudice, participants were asked to read two essays - one critical and one positive - written by an immigrant from Latin America about the US. Following TMS treatment the participants were 28.5 per cent more positive in their feelings towards the immigrant who criticised their country These charts show that people in the control group were more likely to believe in both god and the devil than people subjected to TMS The TMS group also rated immigrants higher than the control group
These charts show that people in the control group were more likely to believe in both god and the devil than people subjected to TMS (left). The TMS group also rated immigrants higher than the control group (right)
The researchers said this reduction in both religious beliefs and prejudice highlights how much such views are influenced by the part of the brain involved with detecting threats.
Given the similar percentages, there may also be a link between how strongly a person's religious beliefs may influence their view on immigrants, and vice versa.
Dr Izuma said: 'People often turn to ideology when they are confronted by problems. RELIGION SATISFIES 16 BASIC HUMAN DESIRES
A psychologist at Ohio State University recently unveiled a theory about the psychology underlying belief in God, claiming it is an attempt to satisfy 16 basic human desires.
These include curiosity, acceptance, family, honour, idealism, independence, order, physical activity, power, romance, saving, social contact, status, tranquility, eating and vengeance.
Professor Steven Reiss insists it's impossible to boil religion down to a single motivation and that to be successful a religion needs to appeal to the various of human nature.
He argues previous attempts to explain religion in terms of psychology have been too narrow by focusing on its ability to provide a moral framework or a way of coping with death.
'We wanted to find out whether a brain region that is linked with solving concrete problems, like deciding how to move one's body to overcome an obstacle, is also involved in solving abstract problems addressed by ideology.'
'We decided to remind people of death because previous research has shown that people turn to religion for comfort in the face of death.
'As expected, we found that when we experimentally turned down the posterior medial frontal cortex, people were less inclined to reach for comforting religious ideas despite having been reminded of death.'
Dr Holbrook added that the findings are consistent with the idea that regions of the brain that have evolved to deal with threats are 'repurposed' to also produce ideological reactions.
He told MailOnline: 'The most striking finding was that the shifts in ideology did not appear driven by shifts in emotion.
'The participants did not report any difference in their emotional states whether their brain area had been turned down or not.
'In addition, we observed a decrease in emotionally positive beliefs in God, and an increase in acceptance of an emotionally negative, harsh critic of the participants' national groups.
'This shows that the findings were not driven by a general shift in responses to positive or negative emotional stimuli.'
'Whether we're trying to clamber over a fallen tree that we find in our path, find solace in religion, or resolve issues related to immigration, our brains are using the same basic mental machinery,' the researchers concluded.
More research is now needed to understand exactly how and why religious beliefs and ethnocentric attitudes were reduced in this experiment.
The project was an interdisciplinary collaboration between the University of York and UCLA, including Dr Holbrook and Dan Fessler from the Department of Anthropology and neuroscientists at UCLA's Brain Mapping Center.
This included Marco Iacoboni, a world authority on transcranial magnetic stimulation and Director of the Brain Mapping Center. Read more:
Oxford Journals | Medicine & Health | Social Cognitive & Affective Neurosci
Poster Comment:
https://www.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/3p0l8k/magnetic_stimulation_in_the_brain_takes_away_ones/
[–]NormieBTFO 3 points ... It does the same thing as one or two drinks would do basically. No more, no less. I am not religious, I am just telling you what it does. Intelligence and faith is a complicated topic. It's not exactly making them smarter, but actually making them less vigilant about how the problem is solved in their brain. Meaning, seeing things in a way with less of a mental defence but not getting smarter. Calming any mental gymnastics. It's a complicated subject, disabling or numbing parts of the brain is changing reality itself. It is not black vs white, or dumb vs smart. It is important to see the data as what it is.
[–]jsct 4 points It's not a new technique. You just have to find the right area. We've taken away people's ability to speak (temporarily! - useful for planning neurosurgery) or perceive visual stimuli.
Abstract: People cleave to ideological convictions with greater intensity in the aftermath of threat. The posterior medial frontal cortex (pMFC) plays a key role in both detecting discrepancies between desired and current conditions and adjusting subsequent behavior to resolve such conflicts. Building on prior literature examining the role of the pMFC in shifts in relatively low-level decision processes, we demonstrate that the pMFC mediates adjustments in adherence to political and religious ideologies. We presented participants with a reminder of death and a critique of their in-group ostensibly written by a member of an out-group, then experimentally decreased both avowed belief in God and out-group derogation by down-regulating pMFC activity via transcranial magnetic stimulation. The results provide the first evidence that group prejudice and religious belief are susceptible to targeted neuromodulation, and point to a shared cognitive mechanism underlying concrete and abstract decision processes. We discuss the implications of these findings for further research characterizing the cognitive and affective mechanisms at play.
They use TMS Single or paired pulse TMS causes neurons in the neocortex under the site of stimulation to depolarize and discharge an action potential. If used in the primary motor cortex, it produces muscle activity referred to as a motor evoked potential (MEP) which can be recorded on electromyography. If used on the occipital cortex, 'phosphenes' (flashes of light) might be perceived by the subject. In most other areas of the cortex, the participant does not consciously experience any effect, but his or her behaviour may be slightly altered (e.g., slower reaction time on a cognitive task), or changes in brain activity may be detected using sensing equipment.[41]
Repetitive TMS produces longer-lasting effects which persist past the initial period of stimulation. rTMS can increase or decrease the excitability of the corticospinal tract depending on the intensity of stimulation, coil orientation, and frequency. The mechanism of these effects is not clear, though it is widely believed to reflect changes in synaptic efficacy akin to long-term potentiation (LTP) and long-term depression (LTD).[42] Also: It is difficult to establish a convincing form of "sham" TMS to test for placebo effects during controlled trials in conscious individuals, due to the neck pain, headache and twitching in the scalp or upper face associated with the intervention.
[–]CrackingYs -4 points ... What it's actually doing is raising their IQ. No longer believing in God is just a side effect.