They found Catholics seemed able to block out much of the pain. Using brain-scanning techniques, they also discovered that the Catholics were able to activate part of the brain associated with conditioning the experience of pain.
The experiment is one of a series being conducted by the academics, a group of scientists, philosophers and theologians from different departments at the university.
A sparking device was strapped to the back of the participants' left hands to deliver an electric shock.
The scientists then asked them to contemplate two paintings, Sassoferrato's 17th Century Virgin Mary and Leonardo da Vinci's 15th Century Lady With An Ermine.
The researchers hoped that the face of the Virgin Mary would induce a religious state of mind in the believers, while da Vinci's secular painting was chosen because it did not look dissimilar and would be calming.
They spent half an hour inside an MRI scanner, receiving a series of 20 electric shocks in four separate sessions while looking at either the religious or non-religious picture.
The Catholics said that looking at the painting of the Virgin Mary made them feel 'safe', 'taken care of' and 'calmed down and peaceful'.
More significantly, they reported feeling 12 per cent less pain after viewing the religious image than after looking at the Leonardo.
The front right-hand side of their brains lit up on the scanner, indicating that the neural mechanisms of pain modulation had been engaged.
There was no such brain activity among the atheists, whose pain and anxiety levels stayed roughly the same throughout the experiment.
Writing in the scientific journal Pain, the researchers concluded that at least some religious believers can moderate their pain by thinking about it more positively.
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