The Neuronal Mechanism of the Faith

Abstract

Top-down processes overrode brain circuits devoted reading and detection conflict (the Stroop effect). Most of the time bottom-up information matches top-down expectations. If we imagine something different, so it is different. A number of recent brain imaging studies point to top-down brain mechanism under the influence of suggestion. By Kosslyn, brain scans show that the control mechanisms for detecting what to do in the face of conflict become uncoupled, when subjects are hypnotized. Top-down processes override sensory bottom-up information. Subjects think that sights, sounds, and touch from outside world constitute reality. But the brain constructs what it perceives based on past experience. We propose this process label as a neurobiological mechanism of the faith (in religious tradition “the Heart”).