Religion breeds both merciful saints and fanatical murderers. Could such an unusual combination depend on the level of dopamine in our brain?
I was 12 years old when my family and I were vacationing in New Mexico, where I saw the Navajo Indians, dressed in national costumes. They bawled some terrible songs and at the same time moved very beautifully, worshiping the four cardinal directions in a dance. The tourists watching them were about to leave, when suddenly a creepy old man appeared, hung with strange pendants and animal skulls. His entire body was covered with scars.
The dancing men were clearly frightened by him, I also wanted to run away, but everyone stood rooted to the spot, watching him silently and majestically leave into the night desert. After that, one of the speakers began to crumble in apologies for their shaman: he was a pious man, but slightly eccentric. At that time, it did not fit in my head how you can be so special, respected and courageous to go alone at night in the desert.
In search of an answer to this question, I began to study neurology. By studying the brain, I learned that certain neural networks and chemistries can make a person both amazingly talented, creatively gifted and even holy, as well as completely crazy, cruel and immoral. As my research has shown, in order to enhance the "God effect" in religious people, it is enough to increase the production of the neurotransmitter dopamine, which is responsible for balanced thoughts and emotions (this happens in the right side of the brain). However, when dopamine levels go off scale, a person becomes violent, resulting in such phenomena as terrorism and jihad.
Religion has always provoked people to do strange things, even at the dawn of human history, our ancestors, when burying the dead, covered the walls of the cave with ritual drawings. One of the earliest evidences of religious consciousness dates back to the late Paleolithic (about 25,000 years ago), when a boy, about 12 years old, crawled hundreds of meters deep into a completely dark cave. He probably guided himself from the drawings on the wall, which he fluently illuminated with a torch. In the depths of the cave, he buried himself in a dead end, where he applied red ocher to his palm and left a handprint on the wall. Then he got out of the impasse and went outside - we can judge about this by the fact that the bones in the cave were not found.
Where did this boy get the courage? And why did he leave his handprint deep in the cave? Some researchers of rock art believe that he performed a certain sacred rite. He, like many others who made a similar path in the cave, made a sacrifice to the spirit world and became a saint, just like that majestic and frightening Indian whom I saw at the age of 12. Most likely, he had elevated dopamine levels.
Over the centuries, excess dopamine gave rise to gifted leaders and peacemakers (Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Catherine of Siena), prophets (Zarathustra), seers (Buddha), warriors (Napoleon, Joan of Arc), teachers (Confucius), philosophers (Lao -zi). Some of them not only created new religious traditions, but also had a powerful influence on culture and civilization. But the increased dopamine also created real monsters: Jim Jones (the "messenger of God" who convinced hundreds of his followers to commit suicide) and the leader of the Aum Shinrikyo sect, who carried out a terrorist gas attack on the Tokyo subway. These include al-Qaeda suicide bombers who attacked the Twin Towers and the Pentagon.
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As the history of 9/11 shows us, the neurological line between holiness and barbarism, creativity and uncontrollability is very fragile. This is proved by the numerous stories of geniuses in whose families there were criminals and the mentally ill. Genes that create a brain capable of unusual creative ideas and associations are also very likely to make the brain (in the same person or his relatives) open to overly strange, manic ideas.
The medical literature is replete with descriptions of bursts of creativity that have occurred in people after taking drugs that increase dopamine levels (for example, the pills that are taken for Parkinson's disease). Bipolar disorder causes people to have problems with dopamine, causing them to experience depression or unhealthy arousal. Sometimes in this state a person creates masterpieces of art. Often, patients refuse to take drugs that regulate dopamine levels precisely because they value the creative activity inherent in borderline states.
Thus, psilocybin and LSD indirectly stimulate the release of dopamine into the frontal lobes of the brain, as a result of which religious ideas can infect even staunch atheists. Because of hallucinogens, a person has vivid images, psychotic outbursts and strong spiritual experiences. Thus, dopamine receptors act on the neurons of the limbic system (the area in the midbrain responsible for feelings) and the prefrontal cortex (forebrain, the center of thought).
After 9/11, I put all the facts together and suggested that dopamine might explain the "God effect." If dopamine levels are high in the limbic system and the prefrontal cortex (but not outside the normal range), the person develops unusual ideas and associations, as a result of which creativity increases, leadership qualities and deeper emotional experiences develop. However, when dopamine levels are too high, people who are genetically predisposed to mental problems begin to suffer from mental disorders.
I pondered this while taking a break from the mundane office work at the Veterans Affairs Office of Boston Medical Center. I performed a routine neurological examination of a tall, outstanding elderly man with Parkinson's disease. This WWII veteran had many awards and seemed to be very smart. He worked as a consulting engineer, but when the disease began to progress, he had to give up his usual way of life. However, as his wife said, he gave up only some of the old habits. "He stopped interacting with colleagues, gave up physical labor and, unfortunately, stopped performing religious rituals."
When I asked what is meant by the word "rites", she replied that he always prayed and read the Bible, but as the disease progressed, he began to do so less and less. Then I asked the patient himself about his religious habits, and he said that he had completely lost them. The most surprising thing was that he felt unhappy about it. He stopped performing "rituals" because it was getting harder and harder for him to delve into them. He did not stop believing and following his religion, but it became increasingly difficult for him to experience religious feelings. He simply lost access to those emotions and experiences that were associated with religion.
The main pathology that occurs in Parkinson's disease is a decrease in the activity of dopamine neurons. For a long time it was believed that thanks to them hedonistic pleasure or pleasure arises - a pleasant feeling that we experience during sex or eating delicious food. When something triggers the production of dopamine, we feel pleasure. This has always explained the effect of drugs such as cocaine or amphetamines: they stimulate the activity of dopamine neurons in the midbrain.
Recent research has shown that things are actually a little more complicated. Cambridge University neuroscientist Wolfram Schultz has shown that dopamine is not just a molecule of pleasure that arises from a pleasant event. As it turns out, dopamine levels only increase when the pleasant event greatly exceeds expectations.
Schultz conducted an elementary experiment to identify this nuance: he gave the monkeys different amounts of fruit juice, while recording activity in the midbrain - the area responsible for feelings, where dopamine neurons are densely located. He found that neurons fire hardest not when the monkeys get juice, but when they suddenly get a very large dose of juice. In other words, only surprises that a person has not yet received can stimulate dopamine neurons. After Schultz unveiled his groundbreaking discovery, scientists discovered similar patterns of dopamine neuron activity in the prefrontal lobes, which are responsible for thought and creativity.
But what is the connection between these discoveries and the story of my patient, who has ceased to be imbued with religious ideas? It can be assumed that religion formed bright personalities who were indifferent to ordinary human joys (sex and wealth) and were looking for more unusual sensations (for example, a sense of belonging to God or the joy of doing good deeds). Dopamine may have contributed to their fascination with unusual ideas, as well as stimulate increased creativity.
I believe that this is where science intersects with religion. Both the most talented scientists and deeply religious people are motivated only by what promotes the production of dopamine and the appearance of unprecedented sensations in the prefrontal lobes: awe, fear and delight. Such feelings are experienced by the most daring artists, the smartest thinkers and all those who are able to come to a delighted delight because of the beauty and uniqueness of the surrounding world. However, if a person is genetically predisposed to the production of high levels of dopamine, then it is enough for him to get too much juice in order to turn into a terrorist fanatic and arrange 9/11.
I have tested my ideas with Parkinson's patients. I interviewed 71 veterans about religion and found a pattern. Among those who believed in God before their illness, only a fraction of those surveyed lost their religious fervor. These were patients whose disease began with muscle problems in the left side of the body, which was caused by dysfunction in the right area of the prefrontal cortex. In patients with left-sided debut, indicators for all aspects of religiosity (emotional experience, daily rituals, prayer and meditation) were much lower than in respondents with right-sided debut.
How can these results be explained? I hypothesized that this was due to a decrease in dopamine levels in the right side of the brain. I still had to rule out other theories. The most traditional of these belongs to Freud, in which he explains religious feelings as a state of anxiety. Religiously promised life after death softens the eternal anxiety caused by the fear of death. I was faced with a difficult task, because my theory of supernatural religious joy asserts the opposite: the believer does not struggle with the fear of death, but seeks to feel it, since this is one of the most powerful, vivid and amazing experiences generated by the brain.
In the end, I decided to compare these theories in another experiment. I had several conversations with Parkinson's patients during which I told them a story about a man walking up a staircase, at the end of which he encountered something unexpected. Different versions had different endings. In the first version, he saw someone dying, in the second - a religious ceremony, in the third - a stunning view of the ocean. After the participants in the experiment listened to these stories, we checked whether their religious views had changed in any way by asking them to rate on a 10-point scale the reliability of the statements: “God or some other higher power really exists” and “God is actively involved in the fate of the world.
Healthy volunteers and patients with right-sided (but not left-sided!) Debut showed marked increases in religiosity after the story with the ocean ending. The ending about death did not make such an impression. The version with a religious rite turned out to be less effective, and the effect from it was much weaker than from the story of the ocean. These results refuted the theory that religion is engendered by anxiety, and reaffirmed my suggestion that faith is strengthened in the hope of supernatural experiences.
How does this all explain the fact that religion gives rise to both unusually talented, holy people, and real monsters? The mechanism that triggers the creative process in us by supplying dopamine to the right area of the prefrontal cortex and limbic system also helps us to become imbued with religious ideas and experiences. However, if you stimulate the excessive production of dopamine, then instead of creatively unusual thoughts, a person develops psychotic and manic states.
Since the late Paleolithic era, religious cultures have shaped, guided, and nourished the desire for great joy in people. Today science, art, music, literature and philosophy offer the same sense of belonging to the sublime that religion alone once gave. To do this, you just need to launch the "God effect", experience delight in relation to the world around you and feel the involvement of great power, while remaining in your right mind.
Dina baty
