The God receptor: naturalistic, psychotic and entheogenic neurocognition in the origins and phenomenology of spiritual and religious thought

The human brain apparently harbors no network or region uniquely dedicated to spiritual or religious thought, or clearly evolved specifically in these contexts. God is thus nowhere in the brain. Could God, instead, be virtually everywhere in the brain? We propose and evaluate the hypothesis that religious and spiritual cognition are derived predominantly from the effects of (virtually ubiquitous) HT2A receptors on perception, cognition and emotion. We evaluate the hypothesis using integration of data from recent fMRI and lesion studies of spiritual and religious neurocognition with data from studies of the HT2A receptor, its distribution, activation, and functions, and its high activation in psychedelic experience, psychiatric conditions, and socioecological and physiological stress. We describe how the God-receptor hypothesis is consistent with diverse, independent lines of evidence. To the extent that the hypothesis is true, further progress in understanding the cognitive neuroscience of spirituality and religion will depend on studies of how adaptive HT2A receptor activation, and supraphysiological hyperactivation associated with stress, psychedelics, or psychotic-affective conditions, is mediated by predictive coding and other functional systems in religion-relevant regions of the brain.