Temporal Lobe Stimulation resulting in an ASC Jeff Lynn Ryan Brenes Jeff Delshad

He remembered that during his epileptic fits, or rather immediately preceding them, he had always experienced a moment or two when his whole heart, and mind, and body seemed to wake up with vigor and light; when he became filled with joy and hope, and all his anxieties seemed to be swept away for ever; these moments were but presentiments, as it were, of the one final second…in which the fit came upon him. That second, of course, was inexpressible. Dostoyevsky’s The Idiot

Temporal lobe includes primary auditory cortex Medial temporal lobe includes areas like hippocampus and amygdala

Persinger’s hypotheses   Temporal lobe transient (TLT) releases memories that were forgotten   Memories are forgotten because temporal lobe shifts its function over time

Brain Stimulation  Transcrainial magnetic stimulation –Motor cortex = different muscles contract –Septum (near front of thalamus) = intense pleasure –Visual areas = color, motion, “seeing”  If someone blind from birth and visual areas intact  Temporal lobes stimulation –Reports of experiencing God

The God Helmet  Experimental device that simulates temporal lobes creating “spiritual experience”  80% of participants experience another presence beside them  Studies are controversial

Temporal Lobe Epilepsy -Unlike focal seizures in motor cortex -Muscle twitching -Temporal lobe -Connection to limbic system -Emotional symptoms -Spiritual experiences -Divine presence, significance in everything, insight

“Temporal Lobe Personality”  May alter patient’s personality (between seizures) –Heightened emotions –Cosmic significance in the trivial –Humorless –Self absorbed, ego-centric, talk about own feelings –Hypergraphic – elaborate diaries w/ symbols –Decreased libido, but still sexual rituals (flirting)

Possible Neural Mechanism for Temporal Lobe Personality  Kindling –Frequent massive nerve impulses from temporal lobe to limbic system –May permanently strengthen / “facilitate” certain pathways –Permanently alters / enriches emotional life –How to test this?

Galvanic Skin Response Test  Two patients shown words & images of –Ordinary inanimate objects –Familiar faces (parents, etc) –Unfamiliar faces –Sexually explicit content (e.g. magazine pinups) –Extreme violence and horror (e.g. alligator eating person alive) –Religious content (“God”, etc)

Galvanic Skin Response Test  Hypothesis –Kindling strengthens connections from temporal lobe to limbic system –Expect high response to all categories –Unlike what would be expected in normal  High response to violence, sex, familiar faces  Low to no response to everything else

Results  Heightened response to religious words and images  Response to other categories, including sex and violence, decreased –Compared to what is seen in normal people  Thus, no general enhancement –Selective amplification to religious content –Decrease in everything else

Implications  There exists neural circuits involved in religious experience –Become hyperactive in some left temporal epileptics  Did circuits evolve specifically for religion? ...Or do they generate emotions contributing to such beliefs?  Much more research needed...

Temporal lobe epilepsy as an ASC  Can cause temporary and long-term changes in personality  Patients say they sometimes reach a state of Nirvana  Feelings after seizures are often compared to use of LSD

Controversy  Belief in a God gene (Hamer)  Genes to help cultivate unity within a population  Culture plays the more dominant role  Some think these personality traits are not more frequent in epileptic patients  Beliefs about God’s existence

References  Persinger, Michael A. Ph.d. "Neuropsychological Bases of God Beliefs" Praeger, 1987  Persinger, Michael “Perceptual and Motor Skills”, 1983, 57,  Ramachandran, V.S., Blakeslee, Sandra “Phantoms in the Brain”, 1998,  Ramachandran, V.S., “God and the Temporal Lobes”  Epilepsy.com: Temporal Lobe Epilepsy   Time: “Is God in Our Genes?”, Jeffery Kluger, Oct 