Transcutaneous Vagus Nerve Stimulation Affects Implicit Spiritual Self-Representations.

Area of Science:

• Neuroscience
• Cognitive Science
• Psychology of Religion

Background:

• Growing empirical interest in religiousness and spirituality.
• Association between brain networks (subcortical, fronto-parietal) and religious/spiritual representations.
• Parietal stimulation's causal link to implicit spirituality established; subcortical/medial cortical roles uninvestigated.

Purpose of the Study:

• Investigate the role of subcortical and medial cortical areas in implicit spirituality.
• Assess the modulation of implicit and explicit religious/spiritual representations using transcutaneous Vagus Nerve Stimulation (tVNS).

Main Methods:

• Utilized transcutaneous Vagus Nerve Stimulation (tVNS), a non-invasive method targeting subcortical and medial cortical structures.
• Employed Religious, Spiritual, and Self-esteem Implicit Association Tests (IATs) to assess implicit representations.
• Used questionnaires to evaluate explicit self-representations.

Main Results:

• Active-tVNS significantly affected implicit spiritual representations compared to sham-tVNS.
• tVNS reduced the strength of automatic associations between the self and the spiritual dimension.
• No significant effects were observed on implicit religious or self-esteem representations, nor on explicit self-representations.

Conclusions:

• tVNS can modulate implicit spiritual associations, highlighting the role of stimulated brain regions.
• Findings provide novel insights into the neurobiological underpinnings of implicit spirituality.
• The study differentiates the neural mechanisms of implicit versus explicit spiritual experiences.