Professor Flanagan said the findings are ‘tantalising’ because the left prefrontal lobes of Buddhist practitioners appear to ‘light up’ consistently, rather than just during acts of meditation.

A new study by the National Institute of Child Health and Development (NICHD) shows religious teenage girls are less likely to have sex. "Religion affected their attitude about sex and it was those attitudes, in turn, that made them less likely to have sex," Ann Meier, of the University of Wisconsin, said. She said being involved in a religious environment made a huge difference in those teenagers' attitudes. The study was comprised of 90,000 teens in the seventh through 12th grades. The NICHD is hoping the information helps health researchers come up with programs to prevent teens from engaging in sexual activity.