Study Supports Quantum Basis of Consciousness in the Brain

The human brain might harbor even more mysteries than we ever imagined

A recent study by researchers in China proposes an intriguing hypothesis: entangled photons could be generated inside the myelin sheaths, the structures that surround nerve fibers. This discovery could provide a new explanation for the surprising speed of neural communication, a key element in understanding consciousness.

Neural communication, which is essential for brain function, relies on electrical signals traveling along axons. These axons are coated with myelin, a lipid substance that insulates and protects nerve fibers while accelerating signal propagation. However, the speed of these signals is still slower than that of sound and is too slow to explain the precise neuronal synchronization observed.

“When it becomes accepted that the mind is a quantum phenomenon, we will have entered a new era in our understanding of what we are.”

To explore this issue, the researchers applied quantum mechanics techniques inside the myelin sheath, treating it as an electromagnetic cavity. They discovered that entangled photons could be produced there, facilitating instantaneous communication along the axons. This entanglement, a phenomenon where two particles are closely linked, could allow for far faster information transmission than through electrical signals alone.

The results show that the production of these entangled photons could be significantly increased within the cavities formed by myelin. This entanglement could even influence the ion channels of neurons, which are essential for opening and closing signaling pathways, potentially across considerable distances within the brain.

Although this research is in its early stages, the discovery opens new perspectives on how neurons might synchronize their activities. It hints at a potential link between consciousness and quantum phenomena, a field still largely unexplored. Researchers hope that this direction will help them better understand the deep mechanisms of neuronal synchronization.

Study Supports Quantum Basis of Consciousness in the Brain

Summary: A new study suggests that consciousness may be rooted in quantum processes, as researchers found that a drug binding to microtubules delayed unconsciousness in rats under anesthesia. This discovery supports the idea that anesthesia acts on microtubules, potentially lending weight to the quantum theory of consciousness.

The research challenges classical models of brain activity, suggesting that consciousness could be a collective quantum vibration within neurons. These findings could reshape our understanding of consciousness, with implications for anesthesia, brain disorders, and consciousness in non-human animals.

Key Facts:

1. The study found that microtubule-binding drugs delayed unconsciousness under anesthesia in rats.
2. This supports the quantum model of consciousness, challenging classical theories.
3. The findings could influence our understanding of anesthesia, brain disorders, and consciousness in non-human animals.

For decades, one of the most fundamental and vexing questions in neuroscience has been: What is the physical basis of consciousness in the brain?

Most researchers favor classical models, based on classical physics, while a minority have argued that consciousness must be quantum in nature, and that its brain basis is a collective quantum vibration of “microtubule” proteins inside neurons.

New research by Wellesley College professor Mike Wiest and a group of Wellesley College undergraduate students has yielded important experimental results relevant to this debate, by examining how anesthesia affects the brain.

More broadly, a quantum understanding of consciousness “gives us a world picture in which we can be connected to the universe in a more natural and holistic way.”

Wiest and his research team found that when they gave rats a drug that binds to microtubules, it took the rats significantly longer to fall unconscious under an anesthetic gas.

The research team’s microtubule-binding drug interfered with the anesthetic action, thus supporting the idea that the anesthetic acts on microtubules to cause unconsciousness.

The findings are published in the journal eNeuro.

“Since we don’t know of another (i.e., classical) way that anesthetic binding to microtubules would generally reduce brain activity and cause unconsciousness,” Wiest says, “this finding supports the quantum model of consciousness.”

It’s hard to overstate the significance of the classical/quantum debate about consciousness, says Wiest, an associate professor of neuroscience at Wellesley.

“When it becomes accepted that the mind is a quantum phenomenon, we will have entered a new era in our understanding of what we are,” he says.

The new approach “would lead to improved understanding of how anesthesia works, and it would shape our thinking about a wide variety of related questions, such as whether coma patients or non-human animals are conscious, how mysterious drugs like lithium modulate conscious experience to stabilize mood, how diseases like Alzheimer’s or schizophrenia affect perception and memory, and so on.”

More broadly, a quantum understanding of consciousness “gives us a world picture in which we can be connected to the universe in a more natural and holistic way,” Wiest says.

Wiest plans to pursue future research in this field and hopes to explain and explore the quantum consciousness theory in a book for a general audience.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

There was a Big Bang that created an exquisitely bio-tuned space-time matter-energy universe from a singularity or from nothing, or from "cosmic foam" spontaneity, which was instantaneously, immanently pregnant with reality – much as the moment of conception contains within it a specific LifeForm – and transcendently permeated by a Vital Force, with light acting as the ultimate carrier of information-knowledge, thus constituting a holonic Holy Hologram, thereby inducing consciousness and quantum mechanically enabling the cultivation of Divine Free Will.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------