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—ANDY NEWBERG AND MARK WALDMAN

ENDNOTES

CHAPTER 1. WHO CARES ABOUT GOD? (PAGES 3-21)

1. Newberg A, d'Aquili E. Why God Won't Go Away. Ballantine, 2002.

2. Newberg A, Waldman M. Why We Believe What We Believe. The Free Press, 2006.

3. Newberg A, Waldman M. Born to Believe. The Free Press, 2007.

Newberg AB, Wintering NA, Morgan D, Waldman MR. The measurement of regional cerebral blood flow during glossolalia: a preliminary SPECT study. Psychiatry Res. 2006 Nov 22;148(1):67–71.

Newberg A, Pourdehnad M, Alavi A, d'Aquili EG. Cerebral blood flow during meditative prayer: preliminary findings and methodological issues. Percept Mot Skills. 2003 Oct; 97(2):625–30.

Newberg AB, Iversen J. The neural basis of the complex mental task of meditation: neurotransmitter and neurochemical considerations. Med Hypotheses. 2003 Aug;61(2):282–91.

Newberg A, Alavi A, Baime M, Pourdehnad M, Santanna J, d'Aquili E. The measurement of regional cerebral blood flow during the complex cognitive task of meditation: a preliminary SPECT study. Psychiatry Res. 2001 Apr 10;106(2):113–22.

4. The nature of human consciousness is a hotly debated topic in science, and the reality-formation mechanisms of the brain are poorly understood. To draw the hypothesis that two inner maps of reality coexist, Mark and I have combined two important theories—put forth by Nobel laureates Francis Crick and Eric Kandel—with a recent MRI study I just completed showing how meditation stimulates activity in parts of the striatum. According to Kandel, the striatum plays an essential role in creating contentment and a sense of safety in the brain. Our brain-scan study showed increased striatal dopamine release during meditation, which helps explain the sense of relaxation, happiness, and peacefulness meditators experience. The striatum sends this information on to many parts of the brain, including the thalamus, which orchestrates our senses about the outside world. The brain perceives this as an internal state of reality, but another internal experience of reality is associated with the claustrum, which Crick considers to be the key to how our brain generates consciousness.

Here's where things become interesting: The claustrum is heavily interconnected with most of the cortex, with the exception of the thalamus. Kandel believes that the thalamus creates a holistic sense of reality, but obviously this sense of reality is disconnected from the sense of reality created by the striatum. In other words, there are two reality maps created by the brain, one conscious, the other subconscious, and they process incoming data about the world in very different ways. Now, they may somehow come together through other neural circuits, but the evidence collected from neurological disorders strengthens the argument that the brain has very different maps of reality. When you add to this model the discovery we've made that advanced meditators have unusual asymmetric activity in the thalamus, we are drawn to the conclusion that spiritual practices may create independent realms of separate realities, or they may help to unify separate realities that coexist in the brain.

We further hypothesize that thalamic asymmetry may make spiritual concepts feel objectively real, similar to other objects the brain perceives in the world. However, consciousness has so many elements associated with it that no single theory, or neural circuit, may lie at the core of this unique human experience. For example, recent research on the precuneus suggests that this part of the brain plays an essential role in increasing or decreasing our conscious awareness of the world, and as we will explain later in the book, yawning is one way to increase activity in the precuneus. See also:

Kandel E. In Search of Memory: The Emergence of a New Science of Mind. Norton, 2006.

Rogan MT, Leon KS, Perez DL, Kandel ER. Distinct neural signatures for safety and danger in the amygdala and striatum of the mouse. Neuron. 2005 Apr 21;46(2):309–20.

Crick FC, Koch C. What is the function