Among the Aka, a hunter-gatherer population in the Congo Basin, cannabis use is common: 70.9% of men and 6.1% of women use it, for a total prevalence of 38.6%. Cannabis users tend to be younger and have less material wealth. The study tested whether cannabis use might be an unconscious form of self-medication against parasitic worms, which are prevalent in the Aka. Urinary levels of a cannabis biomarker (THCA) were negatively associated with worm burden, and men with higher THCA levels showed slower reinfection with helminths one year after anthelmintic treatment. These results support the hypothesis that cannabis use may help control parasite infections.
Buddhist Jhāna meditation and Christian speaking in tongues, despite appearing very different, share key phenomenological features. Interviews with experienced practitioners in the USA reveal a dynamic interplay between focused attention, aroused joy, and a sense of letting go or release crucial to both practices. The paper theorizes that these shared features engage an autonomic field built through a spiral between attention, arousal, and release (AAR), analyzed through sensory gating and predictive processing theories of brain function.
This special issue introduction argues that religion and spirituality have been largely overlooked in the study of human biology. The editors assembled articles covering physiology, psychology, cognition, and neurophenomenology to address this gap. They outline how the issue came together and introduce the included articles, aiming to remedy the historical neglect of these influences on human biology.