My article, A Painful Reality, has finally come out in the April 2007 issue of Free Inquiry magazine. The text of the article, however, is not available online.
Basically, I argue that religion functions as a form of emotional placebo. I cite studies on the neuroscience of the placebo effect that show placebo-induced beliefs modulate activity in the anterior cingulate cortex that are the neural correlates of the unpleasantness of pain. I cite further studies showing that the unpleasantness of emotional pain correlates to the same brain area as the unpleasantness of physical pain. While no one has performed a study using a pill that is an “emotional placebo” (how would you convince a subject it works?) there is reason to conclude that belief can modulate the unpleasantness of emotional as well as physical pain.
The Free Inquiry article does not contain footnotes, so here as the papers I referenced:
Eisenberger N., Lieberman M., Williams K., Does rejection hurt? An FMRI study of social exclusion., Science. 2003 Oct 10;302(5643):290-2.
Hoffman G., Harrington A., Fields H., Pain and the placebo: what we have learned., Perspect Biol Med. 2005 Spring;48(2):248-65.
Hrobjartsson, Asbjorn and Peter C. Gotzsche, Is the Placebo Powerless? An Analysis of Clinical Trials Comparing Placebo with No Treatment, N Engl J Volume 344:1594-1602 May 24, 2001 Number 21
Lieberman M., Jarcho J., Berman S., Naliboff B., Suyenobu B., Mandelkern M., Mayer E., The neural correlates of placebo effects: a disruption account., Neuroimage. 2004 May;22(1):447-55.
Matre D, Casey KL, Knardahl S., Placebo-induced changes in spinal cord pain processing., J Neurosci. 2006 Jan 11;26(2):559-63.
Singer T., Seymour B., O’Doherty J., Kaube H., Dolan R., Frith C., Empathy for pain involves the affective but not sensory components of pain., Science. 2004 Feb 20;303(5661):1157-62.
Zubieta J., Bueller J., Jackson L., Scott D., Xu Y., Koeppe R., Nichols T., Stohler C., Placebo effects mediated by endogenous opioid activity on mu-opioid receptors., J Neurosci. 2005 Aug 24;25(34):7754-62.