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Paul Sims blogging over at New Humanist is pretty scathing about a new study which takes a look at the effect of religious belief on pain. The researchers zapped a dozen atheists and a dozen Catholics while asking them to look at an image of the Virgin Mary or a control image, and found that the Catholics felt less pain when reminded of their favourite demigod. The dial-a-quote Rt Rev Tom Wright, who can't tell the difference between science and his arse, is delighted:The findings were welcomed by the Anglican Bishop of Durham, the Rt Rev Tom Wright who said: ‘The practice of faith should, and in many cases does, alter the person you are. ‘It can affect the patterns of your brain and your emotions. So it comes as no surprise to me that this experiment has reached such conclusions.’But this conclusion isn't news. In fact, it's already well-known that religious fervour can dull your pain. Never mind the scientific studies (of which there are plenty), you only need watch Shi-ites whipping themselves during Ashura, or Filipinos nailing themselves to crosses for Easter, to know that.
What this study is actually about is rather more interesting, because it uses brain scans to look at which parts of the brain are responsible for the effect. It turns out that the right ventrolateral prefrontal cortex (RVLPFC) - shown in the little graphic above - is the bit that lights up in the Catholics who felt less pain as a result of their Madonna-induced rapture. Because the RVLPFC is known to play a role in the reassessment of the emotional evaluation of experiences, the researchers propose that the religious state leads to a reassessment of the pain, giving it new more positive meaning and so making it less, well, painful.
No doubt that's true. But before any religious believers, like the Right Reverend Wright, get too excited about the wonders of religious belief, it should be pointed out that the RVLPFC is in fact the bit of the brain that drives your response to any kind of placebo - including, for example, your common-or-garden sugar pills. Back in 2004, Lieberman et al showed that a sham medical procedure (not a sugar pill in this case but a non-inflated rectal balloon) reduced the pain felt by sufferers of irritable bowel syndrome by activating the RVLPFC. They commented:
These results suggest that placebos may operate, in part, by increasing thoughts about the affective aspects of the pain (i.e., ‘‘I believe I am going to be less bothered by pain now’’) associated with increased activity in RVLPFC.In other words, as far as pain relief goes, you can substitute the mystery of the trinity with a good old-fashioned sugar pill and some kind words from the GP. They work the same way.
K Wiech, M Farias, G Kahane, N Shackel, W Tiede, I Tracey (2008). An fMRI study measuring analgesia enhanced by religion as a belief system Pain DOI: 10.1016/j.pain.2008.07.030
M Lieberman (2004). The neural correlates of placebo effects: a disruption account NeuroImage, 22 (1), 447-455 DOI: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2004.01.037
4 Comments:
Thanks for throwing some scientific light on this Tom. I think my scathing tone was the result of a combination of Oxford working with Templeton cash, the Bishop of Durham (nice description of him by the way) and the fact that on first reading the whole thing just sounded incredibly stupid. But having read your analysis - placebo, makes perfect sense. And undermines the religious argument nicely.
Best, Paul
Does it really undermine the religious argument? I would suspect that the Bishop of Durham would suggest that yes religion does work as a placebo - a God-inspired palcebo, but a placebo.
Depending on your prior assumptions the findings could suggest that God (religion etc.) uses human functioning to bestoy his "mercies." Or the findings could suggest that God is an imagined placebo.
People are extremely effective at rationalizing just about anything, so to suggest that the finding undermines the religious. argument nicely is a bit of an overstatement.
So the big question is 'what is the religious argument'. There is the religious argument that is inherently dualist, that says that there is an entity called the soul that interacts with the brain in some special way to cause religious effects. Based on the Bishop of Durham's previous output, I suspect that this is the kind of religion he subscribes to.
Then there is a religious perspective that is much more materialist, like the perspective you put. That, of course, is entirely compatible with the data.
And that, bottom line, is the problem with religion. Of course these results - indeed any results - are compatible with religion of some description. But that's because religion is infinitely malleable.
From a scientific perspective, what this experiment does is once more narrow down the range of possible religions. And, as usual, the ones left in the realm of the possible are the ones that leave the world looking exactly like it would if there was no god...
Is belief in something, anything, the key?
For a placebo to work one needs the subject to 'believe' that the sugar pill is something more than it is,
So whether religion, spirituality generally or a blind techno-optimism (surely faith of a kind??) the study demonstrates an impact of different thought and belief processes.
Thus by studying any form of belief system even Humanism embodied in the 'sugar pill', we gain a better understanding of the workings of the brain.
Thanks for a thought provoking piece.
Chris
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