I normally really like Lara Logan.

I do have to disagree on her commentary on "the god gene." I had never heard of such a thing. I had to look it up. You can read the Wiki for the basics, but the short version is that a psychiatrist interested in spirituality did a series of twin studies and found a bunch of correlations. Because there appeared to be a genetic component to the phenotype of spirituality, he did a genetic study looking for genes that might be associated and identified a gene that encodes the VMAT2 transporter.

So, I've heard of that before. Where? VMAT2 inhibitors are fairly new drugs that are used to treat tardive dyskinesias and Huntington's chorea. VMAT2 is a transporter that recovers certain neurotransmitters after signaling back to the nerve endings. Allowing for a quick reset of the neuron to signal again. Rapidly repeating a nerve impulse is a way the brain sends strong signals down certain pathways. So, if you block the receptor, it reduces available norepinephrine, dopamine, and serotonin, and slows certain pathways dependent on these. Clinically, it means, you can stop some of the uncontrolled movements that come with the conditions listed above. Good stuff.

But the psychiatrist claims VMAT2 expression is linked to spirituality. It's the gene that lets us understand God. Lara Logan clearly believes in this idea, and fears what might happen if CRISPR-Cas9 was used to cut it out. Logistics and ethics of actually doing such a thing aside (that's another long post where we'd have to talk some detailed science, for another time), what might happen?

Well, we can answer that. We have VMAT2 inhibitors! Let's look at their side effects and see what happens when we give these drugs to people. I'll let you look up the list of side effects if you wish, but generally, they're well tolerated. People sometimes complain about sleepiness, feeling "slowed down" if the dose is too high, so you reduce it. But I haven't read much of anything that talks about feeling disconnected from the spiritual.

Of course, you're free to believe whatever you'd like, but I think this is a sensational hypothesis that has been mythologized, but which didn't stand up to scientific scrutiny. If this effect were real, we should have seen that with the patients who've had to take drugs to block this transporter - and we just haven't. Try as we might, science still doesn't understand the soul.