Pharmacology of faith — a new frontier for research?

Samir Malhotra

Remember Munnabhai's hallucinations of Gandhi described as “chemical locha”? Chemical disturbances behind some brain abnormalities are well known, Parkinson's disease patients have deficiency of a chemical (dopamine). Chemicals are involved in anxiety, mood disturbances, memory loss, and other neuropsychiatric disorders.

Faith is not a disorder. On the contrary, spirituality and religiosity are beneficial — medically (lesser depression, quicker recovery from illness, longer lifespan) and socially. When the earlier humans started to live together, belonging to a group gave social security. At the same time, going against the established practices of the group, however irrational, might have meant death. Like challenging the view that earth is the centre of universe. 

Paracelsus said in the 16th century that it is the dose that distinguishes medicine from poison. If faith is medicine, that confers benefits, what about when it is in excess? Does it not become poison? It's like some amount of anxiety helps us perform better, but if it is in excess, it incapacitates.

What chemicals are involved in faith? Which areas of the brain are involved? Experiments in atheists and believers have shown divergence in the way they handle certain chemicals such as dopamine and serotonin in the brain. Furthermore, areas of the brain where these chemicals exert their effects are also different. A gene has been identified, VMAT2, which controls these chemicals — it may be lacking in atheists, but, on the other hand, those having this gene tend to be more religious. 

In spite of this knowledge, we do not know much about excessive faith —of the type exhibited by a baba's followers recently. Isn't such excessive faith pathological? There are countless examples of how "pathological faith" turned ordinary people into fanatics. Why we keep blindly following such babas even when presented with clear evidence of their crimes? While social, economic and political reasons for this have been analysed, the science behind it has not been discussed. 

Differences in brains of believers versus non-believers exist as mentioned above. But a more important question is whether brains of moderate believers are different from pathological believers. There is hardly any research into such "pathological faith". It is not even clear if pathological faith can be considered a disease, although to those who witnessed recent events it would very much appear to be so. 

Therefore, exhaustive research on "pathological faith" is crucial, and presents a challenge for the scientists, a necessary one — after all, it can save lives. Imagine if scientists discover that people with pathological faith are deficient in a protein. It could then be shown that by restoring the levels of that protein with medicines, we could convert pathologicals into moderates. Sounds simple, but it is not.

Many hurdles are expected 

1 Beliefs are deeply ingrained within us which would make them less amenable to manipulation. But faith in babas often wavers - many people go from one baba to another if their wishes are not fulfilled.

2 Secondly, pathological faith is not even recognised as an entity, it may be OCD (obsessive compulsive disorder), for which treatment can be offered. But time and again, acts of people with excessive faith show us that it is much more than obsession.

3 Thirdly, there may be a concern that interference with faith could turn people into impious monsters. But this is unlikely. Some countries with the lowest proportions of population having faith are Japan, Sweden, the Netherlands and the UK -- hardly the sort of countries you would associate with monstrosity. The proportion of believers is low among scientists too, especially in developed countries. 

The benefits would be tangible though 

1 Imagine a pathological believer turns moderate. He would not be inclined, in the name of baba, or even religion, to indulge in violence against innocent people. Imagine how he would feel -- free of bizarre beliefs and ungrounded fears, false promises and fake magic, enlightened in the thought that embracing faith does not a saint make and abandoning faith does not a monster make. 

2 The Flat Earth Society is an organisation that believes earth is flat. Let us say you have faith in a baba who is a member of this society. And as he delivers his sermon, your 12-year-old child happens to listen. What would you tell your child when he questions your baba's belief? This would be amusing if such things were not happening in reality. But they do. When told by babas, we believe many things no less ridiculous. And may turn violent if confronted. Definitely not normal. 

Surely worth researching.

The writer is a professor in PGI, Chandigarh