The Religious Brain (System): neural correlates of religious identity. Operationalization of the concept of religious identity. Identification of a path between the parietal lobe and the extrastriate body area.

This project is part of a broader one that seeks to respond to the three lines of investigation of the CEFH, summarized in concepts to allow the operationalization of a research project in the field of Neurosciences and its relationship with Philosophy, Psychology and Religion: (1) Causal Processes, Complex Systems and Emergence (System); (2) Ecologies of the Human: Identity, Otherness, Happiness (Others) and (3) Cognition, Intersubjectivity and Human Development (Self).

The most studied topics related to the Self, in Neurosciences, are Self-Awareness (anatomy (Lieberman et al., 2019; Monsa et al., 2018; Van Schie et al., 2018); embodiment: (Salgues et al., 2021); autobiographical memories (Fossati, 2022) and morality (Carlson & Crockett, 2018; Fontenelle et al., 2022; Novak et al., 2022; Pfaus, 2009; Sánchez-García et al., 2019; Zhu et al., 2019)); and Views of Self (Jiang et al., 2019) (self-construal styles: individualistic view of self (Heleven & Van Overwalle, 2019) and collectivistic view of self (Shkurko, 2020). Concerning the “Others” as a line of investigation of the CEFH, the main research area of Neurosciences has been the Social Brain Hypothesis (Dunbar, 1998, 2007, 2009, 2012, 2016; Dunbar & Shultz, 2021) and the Embodied Social Brain Hypothesis (Barrett et al., 2022; Thagard, 2019). Concerning the “System”, if the brain is seen as a system, the main research focuses are on (1) organizing principles of brain network architecture (Azevedo et al., 2022); (2) models of brain network function (Ito et al., 2022); and (3) perturbative experiments and models for brain network control (Lee et al., 2022; Lynn & Bassett, 2019).

The research question: Is it possible to identify neural correlates of religious identity? More specifically, is there a path between the parietal lobe (multisensory integration; Grafman et al., 2020) and the extrastriate body area (perception of embodiment - body position; Salgues et al., 2021) in which religious identity can be mapped? The aims of this project are to find evidence of neural correlates of religious identity; to find a path between the parietal lobe and the extrastriate body area where we can locate the process of religious identity; and to clarify the link between religious identity and embodiment.

To fulfil the first objective, brain imaging banks, usually made available by consortia, will be used to corroborate previous studies on the religious brain and identify regions of interest (RoIs) related to the religious identity. To achieve the second objective, a cross-sectional study will be carried out, using imaging techniques (functional magnetic resonance imaging), to identify the activated areas (taking into account the RoIs) while participants are asked to identify themselves as religious, which religion, how important religion and God are in their lives, and other issues related to religious identity. To pursue the third objective, a systematic review of the literature on the relationship between religious identity and embodiment will be carried out in order to identify RoIs where the two concepts may overlap, drawing philosophical conclusions.

2030 Agenda: The universal adoption of the UN’s 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) is a “sign of global interest in integrating economic, social, and environmental considerations in the development aspirations of UN member states” (Moallemi et al., 2019, p. e240). This integrated perspective is a substantial improvement in public health and social wellbeing (Pradyumna, 2018). Also, insights from the social sciences have been important, particularly for SDG 4 (education) (Colglazier, 2015). The objectives of this research project are aligned with the Agenda 2030’ sustainable development goal (SDG) 3 and 4: Quality Health and Quality Education. Religion is a major cultural, social, political, and economic factor in many official development assistance recipient countries; thus, religion is now recognized as a human resource rather than just an obstacle to development (Tomalin et al., 2019).