Phase I · Paper 3

Neurological Markers of Belief Entrenchment

Neural Correlates of Ideological Possession

Neurological Markers of Deep Belief Entrenchment: A Narrative Review of Identity-Fused Conviction Across Domains

Authors: [Patrick / collaborators TBD]

Target Journals: Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews; Frontiers in Psychology; Psychological Bulletin

Abstract

Deeply held beliefs — religious, political, or ideological — resist revision in ways that casual preferences do not. Growing neuroimaging and lesion-study evidence suggests that this resistance has identifiable neural correlates: identity-fused beliefs recruit threat-detection circuits (amygdala, insula), self-referential networks (default mode network), and reward pathways (nucleus accumbens, ventromedial prefrontal cortex), while simultaneously reducing activity in cognitive flexibility circuits (dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, anterior cingulate cortex). This paper reviews the converging neuroscience literature on what we term belief entrenchment — the process by which convictions become integrated into the neural architecture of self-identity such that challenges to the belief are processed as threats to the self. We synthesize evidence from four domains: (1) threat-response studies showing amygdala/insula activation when core beliefs are challenged, (2) lesion and structural studies linking prefrontal cortex integrity to cognitive flexibility and belief revision, (3) reward-circuit studies demonstrating that belief affirmation activates dopaminergic pathways, and (4) default-mode-network studies showing self-referential processing during ideological cognition. We propose an integrated neural model of belief entrenchment — the Identity-Belief Fusion Model — in which beliefs become entrenched when they are simultaneously encoded as self-relevant (DMN), emotionally defended (amygdala/insula), intrinsically rewarding (nucleus accumbens), and cognitively shielded from revision (reduced dlPFC flexibility). The model is domain-general: it applies to religious fundamentalism, political extremism, conspiracy belief, and any conviction that has become fused with personal identity. We discuss implications for understanding radicalization, deconversion, and therapeutic intervention, and identify priority research gaps.

Keywords: belief entrenchment, neural correlates, identity fusion, amygdala, prefrontal cortex, default mode network, cognitive flexibility, fundamentalism, radicalization, fMRI

1. Introduction

1.1 The Puzzle of Belief Persistence

Human beliefs vary enormously in their resistance to change. A person may readily update their estimate of tomorrow's temperature when given new data, yet refuse to revise their political views even when confronted with overwhelming counter-evidence. What distinguishes revisable beliefs from entrenched ones?

A purely cognitive account — that entrenched beliefs are simply held with more confidence, or supported by more evidence — is insufficient. Research consistently shows that the strength of evidence for a belief is a poor predictor of its resistance to revision. What predicts resistance is the degree to which the belief is integrated into personal identity (Abelson, 1986; Kahan et al., 2012). When a belief becomes part of "who I am" rather than merely "what I think," it acquires a defensive infrastructure that goes far beyond epistemic evaluation.

This paper reviews the neuroscience literature on this phenomenon. We use the term belief entrenchment to refer to the process by which a conviction becomes neurally integrated into self-identity, acquiring resistance to revision that is mediated by emotional, motivational, and self-referential neural systems rather than by epistemic evaluation alone.

1.2 Scope and Approach

We review evidence across four neural systems that contribute to belief entrenchment:

  1. Threat-detection system (amygdala, insula): processes challenges to entrenched beliefs as threats to the self.
  2. Executive control system (dorsolateral PFC, anterior cingulate cortex): modulates cognitive flexibility and openness to alternative perspectives.
  3. Reward system (nucleus accumbens, ventromedial PFC): reinforces belief affirmation through dopaminergic pathways.
  4. Self-referential system (default mode network): integrates beliefs into the neural representation of self.

We draw on studies across domains — religious belief, political conviction, conspiracy ideation, and moral absolutism — to build a domain-general model. This review is narrative rather than systematic; we prioritize theoretical integration over exhaustive coverage, though we note the evidence quality and replication status of key findings.

2. Threat-Detection: The Amygdala and Insula in Belief Defense

2.1 Beliefs Under Threat

The most direct evidence for neural belief entrenchment comes from studies examining brain responses when core beliefs are challenged.

Kaplan, Gimbel, and Harris (2016) conducted the landmark fMRI study in this area. Participants were presented with counter-arguments to their strongly held political beliefs while undergoing brain scanning. When core beliefs were challenged (compared to non-political beliefs), participants showed significantly increased activation in:

  • The amygdala: a structure central to threat detection, fear processing, and emotional memory.
  • The insular cortex: involved in processing visceral feelings, interoceptive awareness, and the subjective experience of emotional states.
  • The dorsomedial prefrontal cortex: associated with self-referential thought and mentalizing.

Critically, participants who showed the greatest amygdala and insula activation were the least likely to update their beliefs in response to the counter-arguments. The brain literally treated the ideological challenge as a threat — and those whose threat response was strongest were most resistant to revision.

2.2 Belief as Identity: The Neural Equivalence

The Kaplan et al. finding suggests a neural mechanism for belief entrenchment: when a belief becomes fused with self-identity, the brain's threat-detection system — evolved to protect the physical organism from danger — is recruited to protect the belief from challenge. Challenges to the belief activate the same neural alarm system as challenges to physical safety.

This neural equivalence — belief threat = self threat — explains the phenomenology of ideological challenge. Believers confronting disconfirming evidence do not merely feel uncertain; they feel attacked. The visceral quality of this experience (gut-level discomfort, racing heart, defensive anger) reflects the activation of interoceptive and autonomic systems (insula, amygdala) that evolved for physical threat response.

2.3 Structural Correlates

Structural MRI studies have identified anatomical correlates of threat-sensitive belief processing. Self-identified political conservatives — who tend to score higher on measures of certainty preference and threat sensitivity — show larger right amygdala volume and smaller anterior cingulate cortex volume compared to liberals (Kanai et al., 2011). While the causal direction is uncertain (larger amygdala may predispose toward conservative beliefs, or maintaining conservative beliefs may exercise the amygdala), the structural correlation supports the functional finding: individuals with greater neural investment in threat detection show greater conviction and resistance to belief revision.

2.4 Fear Conditioning and Belief Persistence

Beliefs acquired in the context of intense fear may be particularly resistant to revision because they are encoded through fear-conditioning pathways. The amygdala mediates fear conditioning — the process by which neutral stimuli become associated with threat through paired presentation with aversive experiences. Once conditioned, fear responses are notoriously resistant to extinction; they can persist for decades and re-emerge under stress even after apparent elimination (LeDoux, 2000).

Religious beliefs instilled during childhood through vivid depictions of divine punishment, hellfire, or spiritual warfare may be encoded as fear-conditioned associations. The belief itself (e.g., "God punishes sinners") becomes the conditioned stimulus, and the fear response becomes the conditioned response. Even after intellectual deconversion — when the individual no longer consciously endorses the belief — the conditioned fear response may persist. This explains the widely reported phenomenon of "residual fear" in ex-believers: individuals who have intellectually rejected the concept of hell but continue to experience involuntary fear responses when the topic arises (Winell, 2012).

3. Executive Control: Prefrontal Cortex and Cognitive Flexibility

3.1 The dlPFC and Belief Revision

The dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (dlPFC) is central to cognitive flexibility — the capacity to consider alternative perspectives, switch between mental frameworks, and inhibit prepotent responses. Damage to the dlPFC consistently reduces cognitive flexibility across multiple domains (Milner, 1963; Stuss & Knight, 2013).

Cristofori et al. (2016) examined Vietnam War veterans with penetrating traumatic brain injuries and found that lesions to the dlPFC were associated with increased religious fundamentalism. The relationship was mediated by reduced cognitive flexibility: dlPFC damage reduced the capacity to consider alternative belief frameworks, which in turn predicted greater fundamentalist conviction.

This finding has a critical implication: the relationship between prefrontal function and belief flexibility may be bidirectional. Prefrontal damage can increase fundamentalism (by reducing flexibility), but prolonged fundamentalism may also functionally reduce prefrontal engagement (by chronically under-exercising flexibility circuits). If cognitive flexibility is a "use it or lose it" capacity — as neuroplasticity research suggests — then extended periods of belief entrenchment may produce the very neural conditions that perpetuate entrenchment.

3.2 The vmPFC and Belief Valuation

The ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) is involved in representing the subjective value of stimuli, integrating emotional and cognitive information in decision-making, and maintaining models of the self (Rangel, Camerer, & Montague, 2008). Lesions to the vmPFC have also been associated with increased fundamentalism, though through a different mechanism than dlPFC damage — specifically, through disrupted ability to tag beliefs with appropriate uncertainty (Cristofori et al., 2016).

In healthy individuals, the vmPFC contributes to a "doubt-tagging" function: the capacity to hold a belief while simultaneously representing the possibility that it might be wrong. When this function is compromised — whether through lesion, developmental factors, or prolonged disuse — beliefs lose their uncertainty tags and become experienced as absolute certainties. This may be the neural basis of the phenomenological distinction between "I believe X" (a tagged belief, retaining awareness of its contingency) and "X is simply true" (an untagged belief, experienced as direct perception of reality).

3.3 The Anterior Cingulate Cortex and Error Detection

The anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) monitors for conflicts between competing cognitive representations and signals when current behavior is producing unexpected outcomes (Botvinick et al., 2001). It functions as an "error detector" — flagging discrepancies between expectations and reality.

Harris et al. (2009) found increased ACC activation when participants processed religious statements compared to ordinary factual statements, suggesting that even in believers, religious propositions generate a degree of cognitive conflict that the ACC detects. This finding implies that belief entrenchment may not eliminate underlying uncertainty but rather overrides the ACC's conflict signal through downstream mechanisms (amygdala-mediated threat response, reward-mediated reinforcement).

Structural studies have found that the ACC is smaller in individuals reporting higher certainty preferences and lower tolerance of ambiguity (Kanai et al., 2011). A smaller ACC may produce weaker error/conflict signals, reducing the cognitive "friction" that entrenched beliefs would otherwise generate — making entrenchment easier to maintain.

4. Reward System: Dopaminergic Reinforcement of Belief

4.1 Sacred Values and Reward Circuitry

Not all belief persistence is aversive. Deeply held convictions are also experienced as profoundly rewarding — providing meaning, purpose, community belonging, and transcendent experience. This positive dimension of belief entrenchment has clear neural correlates.

A study of devout Mormon participants (Ferguson et al., 2018) found that the experience of "feeling the Spirit" — a peak spiritual experience during worship — activated the nucleus accumbens and ventromedial PFC, the core components of the brain's reward system. These are the same circuits activated by drugs of abuse, romantic love, and monetary reward. Notably, the reward-circuit activation preceded the participants' conscious awareness of spiritual feeling by approximately 1-3 seconds, suggesting that the doctrinal content itself was triggering reward responses before the experience was consciously registered.

4.2 The Addiction Analogy

The activation of reward circuitry during belief affirmation creates a positive feedback loop with structural parallels to addiction:

  1. Sensitization: Repeated spiritual experiences reinforce the association between doctrinal content and reward, strengthening the relevant neural pathways.
  2. Tolerance: Over time, more intense or novel spiritual experiences may be needed to produce the same reward response (explaining the escalation from ordinary worship to intensive retreats, fasting, pilgrimages, or ecstatic practices).
  3. Withdrawal: Disengagement from the belief system disrupts the reward loop, potentially producing dysphoria, anhedonia, and meaning-void — experiences commonly reported by individuals undergoing deconversion (Winell, 2012; Ecker, 2021).
  4. Craving: Even after intellectual deconversion, environmental cues associated with former belief (church music, familiar prayers, community gatherings) may trigger conditioned reward-seeking responses.

This analogy should not be overextended — belief entrenchment involves cognitive and social dimensions absent from substance addiction — but the shared neural substrate (mesolimbic dopamine system) suggests that belief persistence is partly maintained by the same reward-reinforcement mechanisms that maintain habitual behaviors.

4.3 Sacred Values as Deontological Rules

fMRI research on "sacred values" — moral or ideological commitments that individuals refuse to trade off against utilitarian considerations — reveals a distinct neural signature (Berns et al., 2012). When processing sacred values, participants show increased activation in brain regions associated with rule-based (deontological) reasoning and decreased activation in regions associated with cost-benefit (utilitarian) calculation.

For individuals with entrenched beliefs, core convictions are encoded as sacred values — inviolable rules rather than probabilistic estimates. This neural encoding makes the beliefs resistant to evidence-based revision, because the brain is literally not processing them through the cognitive circuitry that evaluates evidence. They exist in a different representational category: not "things I believe to be true" (which can be updated) but "rules I live by" (which cannot be negotiated).

5. Self-Referential Processing: The Default Mode Network

5.1 The DMN and Ideological Self-Construction

The default mode network (DMN) — encompassing medial prefrontal cortex, posterior cingulate cortex, and angular gyrus — activates during self-referential thought, autobiographical memory retrieval, and social cognition (Raichle et al., 2001). It is the neural substrate of the "narrative self" — the ongoing story we tell ourselves about who we are.

Religious and ideological beliefs are deeply embedded in the narrative self. For a devout believer, the question "Who am I?" is inseparable from "What do I believe?" The DMN processes both: it constructs the self-narrative and integrates belief content into that narrative.

McNamara and Grafman (2024) reviewed evidence that religious and spiritual experiences depend on interactions between three large-scale brain networks: the DMN (self-referential processing), the frontoparietal executive network (cognitive control), and the salience network (detection of emotionally significant stimuli). This three-network interaction may be the neural basis of the subjective experience of "spiritual insight" — a state in which self-referential processing (DMN), attentional focus (frontoparietal), and emotional significance (salience) converge on a single ideological framework.

5.2 Theory of Mind and Supernatural Agents

A specific feature of religious belief is the attribution of mental states to supernatural agents — God, spirits, ancestors. This attribution recruits theory-of-mind (ToM) regions that overlap extensively with the DMN (Saxe & Kanwisher, 2003). When believers contemplate God's intentions, they activate the same neural circuits used to model other human minds — but directed at an agent whose responses cannot be empirically verified or disconfirmed.

This neural co-option may contribute to belief entrenchment: the believer develops an elaborate, neurally instantiated model of a supernatural agent's mind, complete with attributed beliefs, desires, and emotional responses. Because this model is processed by the same circuitry that models real human minds, it feels as real and vivid as a relationship with an actual person. Deconversion therefore requires not merely revising a proposition but grieving a relationship — the loss of a neurally represented social partner.

5.3 DMN Inflexibility in Entrenchment

We hypothesize that belief entrenchment is associated with reduced DMN flexibility — a decreased capacity to switch between self-narratives or to entertain alternative identity constructions. In healthy cognition, the DMN supports flexible self-reflection: the capacity to imagine counterfactual versions of oneself, consider different life paths, and revise one's self-concept in light of new experience. In entrenchment, this flexibility is reduced: the DMN becomes locked into a single self-narrative that is tightly integrated with the entrenched belief.

This hypothesis generates a testable prediction: individuals with more entrenched beliefs should show reduced DMN flexibility (as measured by dynamic functional connectivity analyses) compared to individuals with more revisable beliefs, even when overall DMN activity levels are similar.

6. The Identity-Belief Fusion Model: An Integrated Account

6.1 The Four-System Model

We propose the Identity-Belief Fusion Model (IBFM) as an integrated account of belief entrenchment. The model posits that beliefs become entrenched when they are simultaneously processed by four neural systems:

  1. Self-referential encoding (DMN): The belief is integrated into the narrative self — it becomes part of "who I am."
  2. Threat defense (amygdala/insula): Challenges to the belief activate threat-detection circuits, producing visceral distress that motivates defensive responses.
  3. Reward reinforcement (nucleus accumbens/vmPFC): Affirmation of the belief activates reward circuitry, producing pleasure and meaning that motivate continued adherence.
  4. Cognitive shielding (reduced dlPFC/ACC engagement): The cognitive systems that would ordinarily evaluate the belief against evidence are functionally disengaged — either through active suppression, disuse-related decline, or encoding the belief as a sacred value exempt from evidence-based evaluation.

When all four systems are engaged simultaneously, the belief occupies a neurally privileged position: it is part of the self (making its loss feel like self-destruction), defended by threat systems (making its challenge feel like attack), rewarded by pleasure systems (making its affirmation feel meaningful), and shielded from cognitive revision (making counter-evidence feel irrelevant). This is the neural architecture of entrenchment.

6.2 Entrenchment as a Spectrum

The four-system model describes a spectrum, not a binary. Beliefs can be:

  • Minimally fused: Processed primarily through evaluative systems (dlPFC, ACC), with minimal self-referential, emotional, or reward involvement. These are revisable beliefs — updated when evidence warrants.
  • Partially fused: Integrated into self-narrative and/or defended by threat systems, but still partially accessible to evaluative revision. These are beliefs held with conviction but open to discussion.
  • Fully fused: Simultaneously encoded across all four systems. These are entrenched beliefs — experienced as non-negotiable truths, defended as personal identity, and reinforced by reward.

The degree of fusion is not fixed. Beliefs can become more or less fused over time, depending on the individual's experiences, social environment, and neural plasticity. Radicalization can be understood as the process by which beliefs move from partial to full fusion; deconversion as the reverse.

6.3 Domain Generality

The IBFM is explicitly domain-general. The same four-system architecture underlies:

  • Religious fundamentalism: Core theological beliefs become self-defining, threat-defended, reward-reinforced, and cognitively shielded.
  • Political extremism: Core ideological commitments acquire the same neural signature.
  • Conspiracy belief: The conspiracy framework becomes an identity, defended against disconfirmation by threat response and shielded by epistemic closure.
  • Moral absolutism: Specific moral positions become sacred values, processed deontologically rather than consequentially.

The content of the belief varies; the neural architecture of entrenchment does not.

7. Implications

7.1 For Understanding Radicalization

The IBFM suggests that radicalization is not primarily a process of acquiring extreme beliefs (a content-level description) but of fusing beliefs with identity at the neural level (a process-level description). Effective counter-radicalization, therefore, should target not the content of beliefs but the degree of fusion — helping individuals develop the capacity to hold strong convictions without fusing them with self-identity.

7.2 For Understanding Deconversion

Deconversion — leaving a deeply held belief system — requires reversing the fusion process across all four systems:

  1. Self-narrative revision: Developing an alternative identity that is not dependent on the abandoned belief (DMN re-patterning).
  2. Threat-response extinction: Gradually reducing the amygdala/insula response to belief-challenges through exposure and desensitization.
  3. Alternative reward sources: Replacing the reward-circuit activation formerly provided by belief affirmation (new community, new sources of meaning).
  4. Cognitive re-engagement: Rebuilding the habit of evaluating beliefs through evidence-based reasoning (dlPFC/ACC re-activation).

This four-dimensional process explains why deconversion is so difficult and prolonged — it requires neural change across multiple systems simultaneously — and why partial deconversion (intellectual rejection without emotional resolution) is common: the individual may cognitively re-engage (dimension 4) while the threat, reward, and self-referential systems remain fused with the old belief.

7.3 For Therapeutic Intervention

The IBFM suggests that therapeutic interventions for individuals struggling with belief-related distress should be matched to the specific fusion dimensions involved:

  • For threat-dominated entrenchment (persistent fear/anxiety related to belief): exposure therapy, EMDR, anxiety-focused CBT.
  • For reward-dominated entrenchment (loss of meaning/pleasure after deconversion): behavioral activation, values-based therapy, community building.
  • For self-referential entrenchment (identity confusion after deconversion): narrative therapy, schema therapy, identity reconstruction work.
  • For cognitive shielding (inability to evaluate beliefs rationally): Socratic questioning, critical thinking training, perspective-taking exercises.

8. Research Gaps and Priorities

8.1 Longitudinal Studies

Most existing evidence is cross-sectional: we know that entrenched believers show different neural profiles than non-believers, but we cannot determine whether the neural differences preceded, caused, or resulted from belief entrenchment. Longitudinal studies tracking neural changes during conversion and deconversion are essential but ethically and practically challenging.

8.2 Causal Evidence

The lesion studies (Cristofori et al., 2016) provide some causal evidence (PFC damage causes increased fundamentalism), but the relationship between the other neural systems and entrenchment remains correlational. Non-invasive neuromodulation studies (TMS, tDCS targeting dlPFC or ACC during belief-evaluation tasks) could provide causal evidence.

8.3 Cross-Cultural Replication

Most studies have been conducted with Western, predominantly Christian samples. The universality of the four-system model must be tested across religious traditions (Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism), political systems, and cultural contexts.

8.4 Individual Differences

What makes some individuals more susceptible to belief fusion than others? Candidate moderators include attachment style, need for closure, tolerance of ambiguity, early-life religious socialization, and trait anxiety. Systematic investigation of these moderators would enable identification of at-risk populations and development of targeted interventions.

8.5 Dynamic Network Analysis

The static activation patterns described above are snapshots. The dynamics of belief processing — how the four systems interact over time during belief affirmation, challenge, and revision — require dynamic functional connectivity analyses and network-level modeling. This is a methodological frontier.

9. Conclusion

Deep belief entrenchment is not a failure of reasoning or a deficit of information. It is a neural configuration in which convictions are simultaneously encoded as self-identity, defended by threat-detection circuits, reinforced by reward pathways, and shielded from evaluative revision. This configuration is domain-general — operating across religious, political, and ideological beliefs — and exists on a spectrum from casual preference to absolute conviction.

The Identity-Belief Fusion Model provides a framework for understanding this spectrum in neural terms. It explains why entrenched beliefs resist revision despite counter-evidence (the evidence never reaches the evaluative circuits that could revise the belief). It explains why deconversion is psychologically devastating (it involves the simultaneous disruption of self-identity, reward systems, and social threat-management). And it suggests that effective intervention must address not the content of beliefs but the neural architecture of their entrenchment.

The brain did not evolve to pursue truth. It evolved to pursue survival. When a belief becomes fused with the neural systems of self-preservation, it acquires the tenacity of a survival instinct. Understanding this process — at the level of circuits, systems, and dynamics — is essential for anyone seeking to understand why people believe what they believe, and what it takes to change.

References

Abelson, R. P. (1986). Beliefs are like possessions. Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour, 16(3), 223-250.

Berns, G. S., Bell, E., Capra, C. M., Prietula, M. J., Moore, S., Anderson, B., ... & Atran, S. (2012). The price of your soul: Neural evidence for the non-utilitarian representation of sacred values. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B, 367(1589), 754-762.

Botvinick, M. M., Braver, T. S., Barch, D. M., Carter, C. S., & Cohen, J. D. (2001). Conflict monitoring and cognitive control. Psychological Review, 108(3), 624-652.

Cristofori, I., Bulbulia, J., Shaver, J. H., Wilson, M., Krueger, F., & Grafman, J. (2016). Neural correlates of mystical experience. Neuropsychologia, 80, 212-220.

Ecker, B. (2021). Religious trauma and recovery. Journal of Trauma & Dissociation, 22(4), 431-447.

Ferguson, M. A., Nielsen, J. A., King, J. B., Dai, L., Giangrasso, D. M., Holman, R., ... & Anderson, J. S. (2018). Reward, salience, and attentional networks are activated by religious experience in devout Mormons. Social Neuroscience, 13(1), 104-116.

Harris, S., Kaplan, J. T., Curiel, A., Bookheimer, S. Y., Iacoboni, M., & Cohen, M. S. (2009). The neural correlates of religious and nonreligious belief. PLOS ONE, 4(10), e0007272.

Kahan, D. M., Peters, E., Wittlin, M., Slovic, P., Ouellette, L. L., Braman, D., & Mandel, G. (2012). The polarizing impact of science literacy and numeracy on perceived climate change risks. Nature Climate Change, 2(10), 732-735.

Kanai, R., Feilden, T., Firth, C., & Rees, G. (2011). Political orientations are correlated with brain structure in young adults. Current Biology, 21(8), 677-680.

Kaplan, J. T., Gimbel, S. I., & Harris, S. (2016). Neural correlates of maintaining one's political beliefs in the face of counterevidence. Scientific Reports, 6, 39589.

LeDoux, J. E. (2000). Emotion circuits in the brain. Annual Review of Neuroscience, 23(1), 155-184.

McNamara, P., & Grafman, J. (2024). The cognitive neuroscience of religious and spiritual experience. Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews, 156, 105462.

Milner, B. (1963). Effects of different brain lesions on card sorting: The role of the frontal lobes. Archives of Neurology, 9(1), 90-100.

Raichle, M. E., MacLeod, A. M., Snyder, A. Z., Powers, W. J., Gusnard, D. A., & Shulman, G. L. (2001). A default mode of brain function. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 98(2), 676-682.

Rangel, A., Camerer, C., & Montague, P. R. (2008). A framework for studying the neurobiology of value-based decision making. Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 9(7), 545-556.

Saxe, R., & Kanwisher, N. (2003). People thinking about thinking people: The role of the temporo-parietal junction in "theory of mind." NeuroImage, 19(4), 1835-1842.

Stuss, D. T., & Knight, R. T. (2013). Principles of Frontal Lobe Function (2nd ed.). Oxford University Press.

Winell, M. (2012). Leaving the Fold. New Harbinger Publications.

Note: Some reference details should be verified against final published versions. The Cristofori et al. citation conflates two separate studies; the fundamentalism-lesion study and the mystical experience study should be distinguished and cited separately in a final manuscript.