Spirituality as a Therapeutic Approach for Severe Mental Illness: Insights from Neural Networks

Spirituality and religiosity can influence mental health treatment, and neuroimaging advances, particularly studies of the brain's default mode network (DMN), offer insight into this link. The DMN is involved in cognitive and emotional processes, and its alterations may help explain how spirituality affects mental disorders. The article discusses spiritual and non-spiritual meditation, as well as psychedelic-induced spiritual experiences in psychiatry and their associated brain networks, to highlight both the potential and the limitations of incorporating spirituality into psychiatric care.

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Abstract

This article explores the link between spirituality/religiosity and mental health from a clinical and neuroscience perspective, taking into account the advancements in neuroimaging. Specifically, it examines how spirituality influences the treatment of mental illness, emphasizing the importance of neuronal networks in cognitive and emotional processes, with a focus on the default mode network (DMN) of the brain. The discussion explores the role of spirituality/religiosity in managing mental disorders and how alterations in the DMN may provide insight into the impact of spirituality/religiosity on mental health. By also discussing spiritual and non-spiritual meditation, as well as spiritual experiences facilitated by the use of psychedelics in psychiatry and the associated brain networks, we aim to elaborate on the importance and limitations of spirituality within psychiatry.