A recent brain image study found a curious link between the shrinking of the part of the brain responsible for memory and being a born-again Christian.
The study, titled “Religious Factors and Hippocampal Atrophy in Late Life,” from Duke University Medical Center analyzed high-resolution MRI data of participants’ hippocampal volumes and found that there was greater hippocampal atrophy in participants who were born-again Protestants, Catholics and those with no religious affiliation than people who are from Mainline Protestant churches.
In other words, non-born-again Christians had a bigger hippocampus than born-again Christians.
Wheaton College professor of psychology Dr. William Struthers described the study as interesting but called attention to what is missing.
“The covariates that they mention in the study – specifically age, depression status, and sex – are really missing and I would want to look at that data before I draw any additional conclusions from that,” said Struthers to The Christian Post on Thursday.
“My concern is how this data is utilized, and if it is used as a way to demean people of faith. Is it used as a way to make people feel as if they are stupid? That their brains are smaller because they are born-again Christians or they are born-again Christians because their brains are smaller,” he questioned. “[T]hat is a place that we want to be careful not to go.”
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