Neurobiology of Sacrificial Rites

The Triune Brain as Neurobehavioral Basis of God Concept

Evolving Brains, Evolving Minds

Supernatural Agents in Human Minds: Brain Mechanisms and Triggering Stimuli

Triune brain's mechanisms of thought and behavior, death awareness, and origin of religion in early humans.

According to ethological point of view, the most important religious displays consist in the gathering of several human groups who perform repeated and prolonged demonstrations of submission toward dominant individuals. These dominant individuals take different forms in each culture but they share some characteristics including an immense power. For what concerns the genesis, in human mind, of the ideas of such immense power beings, some scholars, as Freud (Totem und tabu, 1913), felt that such beings could be the projection result of the figure of the “primordial horde’s father” in a super- human world. In The Naked Ape (1967), Morris has proposed a sort of biological updating of the Freud…

Sexual Dimorphism in Extant Primates and Inferences for Hominin Social Behaviour Evolution

Neurobiologia e genesi delle religioni. Parte Prima: Fattori neurobiologici ed evolutivi nella formazione delle idee religiose.

Sommario 1) Introduzione (Tylor e la definizione di “religione”; livelli di studio della religione: neurobiologico, fenomenologico-strutturale, sociale, economico-materialistico, storico). 2) Le modificazioni dell’encefalo nell’evoluzione dei Vertebrati (con particolare riferimento agli studi di P. D. MacLean) 3) Aspetti funzionali dell’attività cerebrale (utilizzazione del concetto di operatore cognitivo di Newberg e d’Aquili e sua estensione e diversificazione in operatori encefalici di tipo comportamentale, emotivo e cognitivo) 4) Comportamenti di dominanza-sottomissione nelle religioni. 5) Lo stimolo traumatico e la genesi del concetto di “Essere dall’Estrema Potenza”. 6) Sull’origine d…

The triune brain and the neurobiological bases of thought and behaviour

Evolutionary and neurobiological bases of theism

According to evolutionary psychology, all human behaviours are a product of internal mechanisms in conjunction with inputs that cause activation of those mechanisms: no mechanism, no behaviour; no input, no behaviour. From an ethological point of view, the most important religious behaviours consist in the gathering of humans who perform demonstrations of submission toward supernatural individuals endowed with an immense power. About the genesis of the ideas of such beings, Freud felt that they could be the projection result of the “primordial horde’s father” in a super-human world. Subsequently Morris has proposed that divine beings risult from the projection of the figure of the dominant …

Il Cervello Trino e le basi neurobiologiche del pensiero e del comportamento

Le basi neurologiche del concetto di sacro e influenze sulle sue manifestazioni.

Dopo aver riassunto la ricostruzione dell'origine delle idee religiose, aggiungendo alcune considerazioni, accenneremo alle principali linee di ricerca sui neuromodulatori che si ritengono maggiormente implicati nella genesi delle idee e dei comportamenti religiosi ed, infine, riassumeremo i risultati di nostri studi precedenti sui complessi rapporti fra fattori ambientali (in particolare nutritivi), neurobiologici e culturali che hanno caratterizzato le civiltà dell'America precolombiana, in particolare quella azteca.

La "Mente" in relazione agli operatori encefalici nell'evoluzione dei Vertebrati.

Neurobiological aspects of shamanism and sacrifice

According to Winkelman, humans skilled in “soul yourneys” are termed as “shamans”: they are religious practitioners found in foraging societies around the world with antiquity at least as far back as the Middle/Upper Paleolithic transition. Shamans are able to enter into an “ecstatic” state of consciousness that is produced by drumming, chanting, dancing and a variety of other procedures including plant drugs. Altered states of consciousness must be understood in relation to biological capacities, as those related to endogenous neurotransmitters which also have external analogues, such as opioids/opiates and serotonin–like analogues. Recent findings in neurobiological studies support the ro…