God spotting

I find it interesting to see how different reporters report differently about the same event. Researchers at the University of Montreal conducted brain scan studies on a group of nuns to see what their brains were doing whilst they were having a religious experience of a sort. Evidently, there have been "previous suggestions that human brains may have evolved with a "God spot" - a single region that lights up in response to deeply religious thoughts." (The Guardian, "'God spot' researchers see the light in MRI study".)

The Guardian's take on the study was that "The images suggest that feelings of profound joy and union with a higher being that accompany religious experiences are the culmination of ramped-up electrical activity in parts of the brain." Culmination is an interesting choice of words, denoting lineal cause and effect. It is as if to say, the religious experience was caused by ramped-up electrical brain activity.

The Catholic News.com has an expectedly different take on the study:

There has been much debate about how the brain reacts during connections with God among religious followers.

A University of Montreal team found Christian mystical experiences are mediated by several brain regions.

Nuns are said to experience Unio Mystica - the Christian notion of a mystical union with God - during their 20s.

Commenting on the findings, Forbes quotes Fr Stephen Wang, a Catholic priest teaching at Allen Hall Seminary in London, who said: "These brain studies can give us fascinating insights into how the human body and mind and spirit inter-connect, but they should not make us think that prayer and religious experience are just an activity in the brain.

"True Christian mysticism is an encounter with the living God. We meet him in the depths of our souls.

"It is an experience that goes far beyond the normal boundaries of human psychology and consciousness."

The Indian website MedIndia describes the study colloquially but more clinically:

The goings-on in the brain have always left researchers intrigued, egging them on to unlock the secrets embedded in the brain’s nook and crannies. In a bid to comprehend the link between profound experiences and their association with regions in the brain, a research team studied the activity of the brain of Christian Nuns, while they recalled divine experiences.

A University of Montreal team studied the MRI of 15 Canadian nuns to get an insight into brain activity during a mystical experience, revealed that there is not just a single region in the brain that can establish the link with an esoteric experience. The team discovered that, many areas in the brain, as opposed to one single region, drove the Christian mystical experience.

Still, and perhaps due to a prejudice associated with Indian mysticism, that report suggests the brain drove the experience.

But the study itself was not about cause and effect. MSNBC carries a report that reports "just the facts, M'am":

Study: No ‘God spot’ in the human brain
The human brain does not contain a single "God spot" responsible for mystical and religious experiences, a new study finds.

Instead, the sense of union with God or something greater than the self often described by those who have undergone such experiences involves the recruitment and activation of a variety brain regions normally implicated in different functions such as self-consciousness, emotion and body representation.

"The main goal of the study was to identify the neural correlates of a mystical experience," said study leader Mario Beauregard of the University of Montreal in Canada. "This does not diminish the meaning and value of such an experience, and neither does it confirm or disconfirm the existence of God."

"Correlates", not "culminate", not "mediated with the spirit", not "driven". There is a world of difference between correlation and causation.