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Religion Thread: That's Me In the Corner...

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Re: Religion Thread: That's Me In the Corner...

WisconsinWildcard said:
Well for one, case reports are very common in the medical literature and do not make "the publication a laughingstock." A case report commonly contains a hypothesis or...as I am sure you would describe it..."swearing on a cause." Case reports are more for generating hypotheses than testing them however they can be useful for rare or complex cases where further study is impractical.

The article was published in a medical journal called Epilepsy and Behavior. It has a modest impact factor of 2.26 although neurology journals typically are not high impact even at the top tier level. The thing I find more surprising is that nothing presented is a surprise. This phenomenon is well understood, formally taught during residency, and tested on boards. In fact, the first line of the publication states "Religious experiences have long been documented in patients with epilepsy" In fact, transcranial magnetic stimulation can evoke these type of experiences in subjects not suffering from epilepsy when particular areas of the brain are stimulated. There is actually repeatable differences of the experience based on the subject's beliefs.
Click to expand...

I saw God at Jazz Fest in New Orleans in 1996. Is that a recognized phenomenon?
 
Re: Religion Thread: That's Me In the Corner...

Kepler said:
You will never understand how wrong this is.
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Agreed. I have a hard time understanding how people feel the need to define Athiesm in a way that fits into their religious paradigm.

WisconsinWildcard said:
Well for one, case reports are very common in the medical literature and do not make "the publication a laughingstock." A case report commonly contains a hypothesis or...as I am sure you would describe it..."swearing on a cause." Case reports are more for generating hypotheses than testing them however they can be useful for rare or complex cases where further study is impractical.

The article was published in a medical journal called Epilepsy and Behavior. It has a modest impact factor of 2.26 although neurology journals typically are not high impact even at the top tier level. The thing I find more surprising is that nothing presented is a surprise. This phenomenon is well understood, formally taught during residency, and tested on boards. In fact, the first line of the publication states "Religious experiences have long been documented in patients with epilepsy" In fact, transcranial magnetic stimulation can evoke these type of experiences in subjects not suffering from epilepsy when particular areas of the brain are stimulated. There is actually repeatable differences of the experience based on the subject's beliefs.
Click to expand...
Facts stink! I remember reading about Joan D'Arc when lil les was younger and fascinated by that time period. He had to do a report on a famous person and chose her. In researching it he found a theory that hypothesized she was epileptic and her visions were seizures. I found that entirely plausible. (I am such a heretic!!)
 
Re: Religion Thread: That's Me In the Corner...

WisconsinWildcard said:
Well for one, case reports are very common in the medical literature and do not make "the publication a laughingstock." A case report commonly contains a hypothesis or...as I am sure you would describe it..."swearing on a cause." Case reports are more for generating hypotheses than testing them however they can be useful for rare or complex cases where further study is impractical.

The article was published in a medical journal called Epilepsy and Behavior. It has a modest impact factor of 2.26 although neurology journals typically are not high impact even at the top tier level. The thing I find more surprising is that nothing presented is a surprise. This phenomenon is well understood, formally taught during residency, and tested on boards. In fact, the first line of the publication states "Religious experiences have long been documented in patients with epilepsy" In fact, transcranial magnetic stimulation can evoke these type of experiences in subjects not suffering from epilepsy when particular areas of the brain are stimulated. There is actually repeatable differences of the experience based on the subject's beliefs.
Click to expand...

That's a good call and they took this more seriously than I expected.

But it appears the study was easily rebuked, including:

This is a perfect example of why it's a horrible idea to conclude anything from an n of 1. As you point out, the control or rejection of eye movement artifacts are undetermined. Plus, it's not unusual to see postictal activity in the inferotemporal region. Many think of epilepsy as being a temporal lobe phenomena - but seizures can arise from many parts of the brain, many of which show sharp wave events that register "hot" in reconstructed images. The larger data on religious experience and meditative states indicates regions of the parietal lobe that may be associated with dissociative states. So while this is an interesting excuse to frame the neural correlates of religiosity, there's not much "there" there.

...and....

Sometimes n=1 can be very interesting (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... originally, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/....

The issue here is that a very simple explanation can easily account for this weak data: eye movements are very common, ~ one order of magnitude higher than neuronal activity, typically show the same pattern etc.

Strong prior, little evidence: reject crazy hypothesis.
 
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Re: Religion Thread: That's Me In the Corner...

leswp1 said:
Facts stink! I remember reading about Joan D'Arc when lil les was younger and fascinated by that time period. He had to do a report on a famous person and chose her. In researching it he found a theory that hypothesized she was epileptic and her visions were seizures. I found that entirely plausible. (I am such a heretic!!)
Click to expand...

Wouldn't surprise me. Back in her day, such people were frequently regarded as "demonically possessed" by the masses, so in that regard perhaps she was lucky to have had the brief following she did, before she was executed as a heretic and a traitor.

If it wasn't epilepsy or other mental issues, then I'd speculate that she was either a great actress, or must've known where to find the REALLY good 'shrooms. ;)
 
Re: Religion Thread: That's Me In the Corner...

FadeToBlack&Gold said:
Wouldn't surprise me. Back in her day, such people were frequently regarded as "demonically possessed" by the masses, so in that regard perhaps she was lucky to have had the brief following she did, before she was executed as a heretic and a traitor.

If it wasn't epilepsy or other mental issues, then I'd speculate that she was either a great actress, or must've known where to find the REALLY good 'shrooms. ;)
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You don't even need that. In a society permeated with the idea of god to an extent we can't even imagine, everybody who today for whatever reason -- psychological, biochemical, mercantile -- "sees" UFOs and Bigfoot and, well, god, in that era saw god, demons, the devil, etc.

Our monkey brains are very suggestible.
 
Re: Religion Thread: That's Me In the Corner...

5mn_Major said:
That's a good call and they took this more seriously than I expected.

But it appears the study was easily rebuked, including:

This is a perfect example of why it's a horrible idea to conclude anything from an n of 1. As you point out, the control or rejection of eye movement artifacts are undetermined. Plus, it's not unusual to see postictal activity in the inferotemporal region. Many think of epilepsy as being a temporal lobe phenomena - but seizures can arise from many parts of the brain, many of which show sharp wave events that register "hot" in reconstructed images. The larger data on religious experience and meditative states indicates regions of the parietal lobe that may be associated with dissociative states. So while this is an interesting excuse to frame the neural correlates of religiosity, there's not much "there" there.

...and....

Sometimes n=1 can be very interesting (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... originally, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/....

The issue here is that a very simple explanation can easily account for this weak data: eye movements are very common, ~ one order of magnitude higher than neuronal activity, typically show the same pattern etc.

Strong prior, little evidence: reject crazy hypothesis.
Click to expand...

It took me a while to find out where you quoted that from. Honestly, I read the first paragraph several times and I still cannot really figure out the point. The popular press articles and comments are not written by physicians or better yet, physician scientists. A well trained epileptologist can determine artifact vs accurate reading on an EEG. Believe me. I have several good friends who are epileptologists and have personally spent hundreds of hours reading EEGs with well experienced neurologists including one of the foremost experts in the world on epilepsy. Seriously, I am not going to name drop but he authors one of "the books." What is the point about the parietal lobe? Cortex mapping is complex and I certainly did not say that epilepsy is only temporal (hint epilepsy can occur largely wherever there is nervous tissue) nor did I say that all of the cortical functions associated with religiosity are exclusively in the temporal lobe. Mapping of complex traits is somewhat variable but predictable and does not respect the relatively arbitrary territories of the temporal, frontal, parietal, and occipital lobes. I also have no idea why they bring up eye movements. Are they trying to say eye movements invalidate EEG findings? I order prolonged video EEG recordings at least weekly on patients. Should I be sure to tell them to keep their eyes still because "eye movements are common and ~one order of magnitude higher than neuronal activity?" I honestly do not know what the **** that even means.

This "study" could not have existed and it would not change the current understanding of neuroanatomy and neurophysiology. You should not dig your heals in with this one study because it is largely irrelevant in the face of several decades of stronger research. This is one of those things where I read the headline, go "eh" and move on because it does not add much of anything. The popular press tries to sensationalize things but the truth is the slow, methodical march of the scientific method has already passed by. We have a very good understanding of the brain right now (with a long way to go). We are able to map and place electrodes that actively modify disease behavior. In the next few decades, this will be vastly expanded. Every day, my physical exams on patients confirm our hypotheses. Give me a patient and on exam alone, I can predict if and where they have a lesion before any imaging is performed.
 
Re: Religion Thread: That's Me In the Corner...

5mn_Major said:
I wouldn't call atheism crazy. Negative and of little value add but not crazy.
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Religious faith is of little value add to me and the words that come out of the mouths of the faithful are often quite negative. So, it cuts both ways. :)
 
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