Introduction 2

FIVE GO LOOKING FOR QUANTUM CONSCIOUSNESS

The idea of a link between quantum physics and consciousness goes back to the beginnings of quantum theory in the early 20^th century. However, since the modern consciousness debate began in earnest about twenty years ago, five main types of theory have emerged. These include a version proposed by the physicist Henry Stapp (1.) based on Heisenberg’s view of quantum theory, quantum brain dynamics (QBD), which embraces the varying ideas of Umezawa (2.), Froehlich (3.&4.), Jibu and Yasue (5.), Vitiello (6.) and others , the Orch OR theory of Penrose and Hameroff (7-9.), the implicate order concept of David Bohm, (10.) and finally Gustav Bernroider's recent proposal that the ion channels of neurons may involve quantum coherent activity (11.).

Henry Stapp:
Henry Stapp believes that classical physics cannot describe the brain, and thinks that a quantum framework is needed for a full explanation. He is sympathetic to the pre-quantum age ideas of William James, who suggested that consciousness was a ‘selecting agent’ present when choices have to be made.

Stapp bases his theory of consciousness on Heisenberg’s interpretation of quantum theory. The Copenhagen interpretation was the first quantum orthodoxy promulgated by Neils Bohr. This was pragmatic in recommending quantum mechanics as a system of rules that allowed the calculation of empirically verifiable relationships between observations.

Heisenberg refined this position. Bohr and Heisenberg agreed in viewing the theory as a set of rules for making predictions about observations made under experimental conditions. However, Heisenberg thought that the theory was something more than a system of statistical rules, and that the probability distribution of quantum theory really existed in nature. He considered that the evolution of this probability distribution was punctuated by uncontrolled events, which are the events that actually occur in nature, and the manifestation of which eliminates the other possibilities in the probability distribution.

The emphasis is thus on the probability distribution. Heisenberg did not view the quanta as actual things but as tendencies for certain types of events to occur. The orderly evolution of the quantum system is deterministic, but this controls only the tendency for things or propensity for events and not the actual things or events themselves. The things or events are controlled by quantum jumps that do not individually conform to any natural law, but collectively conform to statistical rules.

With respect to the brain and consciousness, Stapp considers that some brain processes such as the calcium ions that are involved in the release of neurotransmitters at synapses need to be treated quantum mechanically. Further, he thinks that the non-linearity of the synaptic system and the large number of metastable states into which the brain can evolve point to a quantum mechanical structure.

A top-down theory
Although Stapp thinks there is quantum based activity in the synapses and possibly other aspects of the brain, his theory, in contrast to quantum brain dynamics or Orch OR, is not really based at the microscopic level. Instead, Stapp envisages consciousness as exercising top-level control over neural excitation in the brain. Quantum brain events are suggested to occur at the whole brain level rather than the level of the synapses. In this system, conscious events are selected from the large-scale excitation of the brain. He speaks of a creative event bringing into being one of a range of possibilities that exist in Heisenberg’s quantum distribution of probabilities. The neural excitations are a code, and each experience is regarded as a selection from this code. The conscious brain is seen as a system that is internally determined in a way that cannot be represented outside the system, whereas in the rest of the physical universe an external representation of an object or system and knowledge of the laws of physics allows accurate predictions as to future events.

Stapp views the brain as a self-programming computer with self-sustaining input from memory, which is a code derived from previous experience. This results in a number of probabilities from which consciousness has to select. The conscious act is a selection of a piece of top-level code, which then exercises control over the flow of neural excitation. Each human experience is accompanied by the activation of a top-level code.
Stapp says that proof of his theory requires the identification of the neurons that provide the top-level code and also the mechanism by which the memory store is turned into further top-level code. The conscious events are seen as being capable of grasping a whole pattern of activity, and this in turn is seen as accounting for the unity of our consciousness.

Stapp envisages a top level of brain processing involved with information gathering, planning of actions, choice of particular plans and execution and monitoring of these plans. It is suggested that each top-level event is linked to a psychological event, which connects the psychological to the quantum. Each human conscious experience is seen as a ‘feel’ of an event in the top level of processing in the human brain.

Stapp sees the physical world as a structure of tendencies or probabilities within the world of the mind. He thinks that the introduction of an irreducible element of chance into nature via the collapse of the wave function, as described in most forms of quantum theory, is unacceptable. The element of conscious choice is seen by him as removing chance from nature.

Quantum Brain Dynamics:
The basic concept in quantum brain dynamics (QBD) is that the electrical dipoles of the water molecules in the brain constitute a cortical field. The quanta of this field are described as corticons. The field interacts with quantum coherent waves propagating along the neuronal network. There is more than one view within QBD as to how this system supports or instantiates consciousness.

The ideas behind quantum brain dynamics (QBD) derived originally from the physicists, Hiroomi Umezawa and the Herbert Froehlich in the 1960s. In the last 20 years, these ideas have been elaborated and given greater prominence by the combined efforts of Japanese physicists, Mari Jibu and Kunio Yasue and also by the Italian physicist Giuseppe Vitiello.

Umezawa along with Iain Stuart and Yasushi Takahashi (12.) proposed the idea of a cortical field in the brain. Water comprises 70% of the brain and QBD suggests that rather than providing a passive background, water could be an active player in brain processes. Water molecules have a constant electric dipole, and are considered in QBD to be capable of interacting with waves generated by biomolecules that are also electrical dipoles.

In QBD, the totality of the water molecules in the brain is viewed as the best candidate for a cortical field, with the water’s electrical dipoles binding both to one another and to the biomolecules of the neuronal network. There are also suggested to be long-range waves within the cortical field. The quanta of the cortical field are given the name of corticons, and in Jibu and Yasue’s version of the theory, the interaction between the cortical field and the neuronal network, particularly the dendritic part of that network, is the basis of consciousness.

The other half of the theory refers to biomolecules propagating through the neuronal network, an idea deriving from the work of Froehlich in the 1960’s. Froehlich argued that it was not clear how order was sustained in living systems, given the likely disrupting effect of the continual fluctuations in biochemical processes (3., 4. & 13.). His ideas relate mainly to the ordering of the neuronal network on which the proposed cortical network of Umezawa is supposed to act.

Froehlich saw the electric potential across the cell membrane as the macroscopic observable of an underlying quantum order. Froehlich’s studies claim to show that with oscillating electrical charges in a thermal bath, a large number of quanta may become condensed into a single state, known as a Bose condensate, allowing long-range correlations amongst the dipoles involved. He also proposed that biomolecules with a high electric dipole moment line up along the actin filaments, and that electric dipole oscillations propagate along these filaments in the form of quantum coherent waves. There is some support for these ideas, in the form of experimental confirmation that biomolecules with high electric dipole moment have a periodic oscillation (14. Gray & Singer, 1989).

Vitiello, agrees with Froehlich in arguing that living systems constitute ordered chains of chemical reactions, which could normally be expected to collapse in the random chemical environment of biological issue. In Vitiello’s view stable ordering comes from the quantum level, but this is described by quantum field theory rather than quantum mechanics. He also claims that the folding of protein, which is fundamental to the activity of cells, cannot be described by classical physics, but could be quantum ordered.

Vitiello provides citations, which he feels support a quantum dynamical view of biological tissue, notably studies of radiation effects on cell growth by (15. Grundler & Kaiser, 1992) & (16. Pohl, 1988), on electromagnetic fields and stress by (17. Gutzeit, 2000), on dynamical response to external stimuli by (18. Kaiser, 1988), on non-linear tunnelling by (19. Huth et al, 1984), on coherent nuclear motion in membrane proteins by (20. Vos et al, 1993), on optical coherence in biological systems by (21. Li et al, 1983), on weak radiation fields and biological systems by (22. Popp, 1986) & (23. Jerman et al, 1996) and on energy transfer via solitons and coherent excitations by (24. Huth, Gutman & Vitiello, 1989) & (25. Christiansen, Pagano & Vitiello, 1991).

QBD proposes that the cortical field not only interacts with, but also to a good extent controls the neuronal network. It suggests that biomolecular waves propagate along the actin filaments, an important part of the cytoskeleton, particularly in the vicinity of the cell membrane and dendritic spines. The waves derive energy from ATP molecules stored in the membrane, and these in turn are controlled by calcium ions. These waves are also suggested to control the action of ion channels, which are crucial in the transmission of signals to the synapses.. The neuron’s membrane is further suggested to act as a Josephson junction providing insulation between two layers of superconductivity. The superconductivity current across the membrane can be controlled by the electrical potentials across the same membrane.

Vitiello also discusses the question of quantum decoherence. He claims that QBD only requires quantum oscillations to last 10-14 picoseconds, which should be much shorter than the period required for decoherence (26. Del Giudice, Preparata & Vitiello, 1988b). In common with Stuart Hameroff, he additionally argues that ordered water around protein molecules may shield them from the surrounding thermal bath.

Jibu & Yasue appear to see consciousness as simply a function of the interaction of the corticons, the energy quanta which are proposed to arise in the cortical field, interact with the biomolecular waves of the neuronal network. Vitiello, while thinking in terms of much the same quantum systems as Jibu and Yasue, proposes that these quantum states produce two poles, first a subjective representation of the external world and secondly a self, which opens itself to this representation of the external world. According to Vitiello’s version of the theory, consciousness is not strictly speaking in either the self or the external representation but between the two, in the opening of one to the other.

David Bohm and the Implicate Order:
David Bohm took the view that quantum theory and relativity contradicted one another, and that this contradiction implied that there existed a more fundamental level in the physical universe. He claimed that both quantum theory and relativity pointed towards this deeper theory. This more fundamental level was supposed to represent an undivided wholeness and an implicate order, from which arose the explicate order of the universe as we actually experience it. The explicate order is seen as a particular case of the implicate order.

The implicate order applies both to matter and consciousness, and it can therefore explain the relationship between these two apparently different things. Mind and matter are here seen as related projections into our explicate order from the underlying reality of the implicate order. Bohm claims that when we look at the extension of matter and separation of its parts in space, we can see nothing in these concepts that helps us with understanding consciousness.

Bohm compares this problem to Descartes discussion of the difference between mind and matter. Descartes to some extent relied on God to resolve the gap. Bohm says that since Descartes time the idea of introducing God into the equation has been let drop, and he claims that as a result conventional modern thinking has no way of bridging the gap between matter and consciousness.

The Holographic brain concept and Karl Pribram:
In Bohm’s scheme there is an unbroken wholeness at the fundamental level of the universe, in which consciousness is not separated from matter. Bohm’s view of consciousness is closely connected to Karl Pribram’s hologaphic conception of the brain (27-9). Pribram sees sight and the other senses as lenses, without which the universe would appear as a hologram. Pribram thinks that information is recorded all over the brain, and that this information is enfolded into a whole, also in the manner of a hologram, although it is suggested that the physical function involved is more complicated than a hologram.

In Pribram’s scheme, it is suggested that the different memories are connected by association and manipulated by logical thought. If the brain is also attending to sensory data, all of these facets are proposed to fuse together in an overall experience or unanalysable whole. This is suggested to be closer to the essence of consciousness than the mere excitation of neurons.

In trying to arrive at a description of consciousness, Bohm discusses the experience of listening to music. He thinks that the sense of movement and change that constitutes the experience of the music relies on notes both from the immediate past and the present being held in the brain at the same time. Bohm does not view the notes from the immediate past as memories but as active transformations of what came earlier. He proposes that a given moment can cover an extended duration, as opposed to the more conventional ‘now’ concept of something instantaneous.

The moment is proposed to have extension in time and space, but the amount of this extension is not precisely defined. One moment gives rise to the next, with content that was implicate in the immediate past becoming explicate in the present. The sense of movement in music is the result of the intermingling of transformations. Bohm likens these transformations to the emergence of consciousness from the implicate order. He thinks that in listening to music people are directly perceiving the implicate order. The order is thought to be active and to flow into emotional and physical responses.

The Problem of Time:
Bohm also discusses the problem of time, the concept of ‘now’ and the difficulty of distinguishing ‘now’ from the immediate past, which no longer exists. In classical physics this problem is overcome via the calculus, with its concept of ‘the limit’, which is effectively a zero change in time or space. This is successful for calculating the movement of material objects in classical physics, which comprises the explicate order. However, it is not applicable to quantum theory in which movement is not seen as continuous. In the implicate order intermingled elements are present together and processes are the outcome of what is enfolded in the implicate order. In this structure there is a flow between experience and logical thought that is considered by Bohm to hold out the possibility of a bridge between matter and consciousness.

Bohm also advances the idea of overall necessity driving short-term brain processes. Thus it is proposed that an ensemble of elements enfolded in the brain will constitute the next development of thought, and that these elements are bound by an overall necessity that brings them together, and also determines the next moment in consciousness.

Bohm relates movement to the implicate order; for movement, we can also read change or flow or the coherence of our perception of a piece of music over a short period of time. Evidence for this is claimed to derive from studies of infants (30. Piaget, 1956), who have to learn about space and time, which are seen as part of the explicate order, but appear to have a hard-wired understanding of movement that is implicate. Bohm’s view is that the movement and flow of the implicate order are hard-wired into human brains, in the same way that Chomsky asserts that grammar is hard wired into the human brain, but that by way of contrast, the classical space and time of the explicate order are something that has to be learnt by experience.

Penrose/Hameroff - ORCH OR:
Orch OR represents a merger of the ideas of Roger Penrose and Stuart Hameroff that were initially developed separately, and which approached the problem of consciousness from the radically different angles of mathematics and anaesthesia.

Penrose’s theory is developed from a mathematical angle. The first stage of his argument considers Gödel’s theorem. The mathematician and logician Kurt Gödel demonstrated that with any set of axioms, it was possible to produce a statement that was obviously true, at least to mathematicians, but could not be proved by the axioms.

Penrose claimed that this showed the ability of the human mind to go beyond what could be demonstrated by the mathematical axioms, and indicated that there was something in the functioning of the human brain that was not based on an algorithm (a system of calculation). A computer is just a system of algorithms, and Penrose claimed that the Gödel theorem demonstrated that human brains could perform functions that no computer would ever be able to perform. This assertion has been vigorously contested by critics and notably by philosophers such as Patricia Churchland (31. & 32.). Penrose’s second book, ‘Shadows of the Mind’ was in part a response to the attacks of such critics.

Penrose went on to ask, what it was in the human brain that was not based on algorithms. The physical law is described by mathematics, so it is not easy to come up with things or processes, which are not governed by algorithms. The only plausible candidate that Penrose could find was the collapse of the wave function, where the choice of the point to which the wave collapses is random, i.e. not the product of an algorithm. This means that for an individual wave there is absolutely no guarantee as to where the subsequent particle will appear. The process is thus random, and randomness is hardly a promising basis for the mathematical judgements highlighted by Penrose.

Objective reduction:
He attempted to deal with this deficiency by proposing that in certain circumstances there could be an alternative model for the collapse of the wave function. He called this objective reduction (OR). The collapse or reduction was traditionally viewed as the result of an experiment or observation, and more recently it has been seen as the wave becoming involved with the environment and losing its quantum coherence, which is referred to as decoherence.

Penrose, however, proposes that the wave function can under certain circumstances without either a measurement or decoherence. He suggests that each superposition could have its own spacetime geometry, its own relationship to whatever form of lattice or network is proposed to constitute the quantised structure of spacetime. The superpositions, each with their own spacetime geometry, comprise a form of blister in spacetime, as two or more versions of spacetime start to separate from one another. But once this blister or separation grows to more than the Planck length of 10^-35metres, the superpositions begin to be effected by gravity, they become unstable, and they soon collapse under their own gravitational self-energy.

The theory proposes that in contrast to the normal form of wave function collapse, which is completely random, there are indications that OR involves a decision-making process that is neither random nor algorithmically based, but is more akin to the ‘understanding’ by which Penrose claims the human brain can go beyond that which can be achieved by computers.

Geroch & Hartle:
He derives support for this speculative hypothesis from the 1980s work of the physicists Robert Geroch and James Hartle. They ran up against a problem in deciding whether two spacetimes were the same. The problem was solvable in two dimensions but not in the four dimensions, sional spacetime in which the superposition of quantum particles needs to be modelled, it was not. It has been shown that there is no algorithm for solving this problem in four dimensions (33. Markov, 1958). Penrose takes this to suggest that the geometry of spacetime, the most basic level of the universe, is non-computable.

Stuart Hameroff:
When Penrose first launched his theory in 1989, he faced a considerable explanatory gap as to how his type of wave functions could occur in the brain, and if they did occur, how they would combine together to influence the large scale activity of the brain. Meanwhile Stuart Hameroff had been approaching the question of consciousness from an entirely different angle via a career in anaesthesia. Hameroff stressed that the anaesthetic process obliterates consciousness, but leaves many other body functions that also require activity in the brain, substantially unaffected. Hameroff takes this to suggest that the physical basis of consciousness in the brain is different from the basis of the many other brain activities that are not significantly affected by anaesthesia.

Hameroff developed the theory that consciousness in the brain was based on structures within neurons known as microtubules. Neurons contain a supportive structure known as the cytoskeleton. Microtubules form the core of the cytoskeleton. As neuroscience has progressed, the role of the cytoskeleton and microtubules has assumed greater importance. In addition to providing a supportive structure for the cell, the microtubules transport molecules including neurotransmitter molecules, and also control cell movement, growth, shape and division.

Hameroff suggests that the microtubules could support macroscopic quantum features known as Bose-Einstein condensates. These can occur when large numbers of bosons, massless particles such as photons, become locked in phase and exist as a single quantum object. The existence of such objects would make it possible for quantum features that are usually very small, to have an influence over the macroscopic scale of the brain. Microtubules can be extensive within individual neurons, and in addition Hameroff suggested that it might be possible for the condensates to link to other neurons via gap junctions.

In recent years, gap junctions have been discovered to be common in areas of the brain associated with consciousness (33-44.). With gap junctions, the neurons are much closer than with the normal synaptic cleft, and it would be possible for the condensate to jump into the next neuron by a process known as quantum tunnelling. In this way, it is claimed that it would be possible for the condensates to extend over large areas of the brain. Hameroff also claims that there are now dozens of academic papers showing that cortical interneurons linked to gap junctions are correlated to the so-called 40Hz (actually a range of 30-70Hz) gamma oscillation, which is in turn one of the best known neural correlates of consciousness.

Combination of ideas:
The microtubule/condensate hypothesis has been combined with Penrose’s objective reduction hypothesis to create the ORCH OR model of quantum consciousness. Bose-Einstein condensates that are postulated to extend across large areas of the brain are suggested to collapse under their own gravitational energy. This form of collapse is speculated to connect them to non-computational decision taking place at the level of the fundamental spacetime geometry.

At the same time, it is proposed that the microtubules both influence and are influenced by the synapse driven cognitive activity in the brain. The Orch of Orch OR stands for orchestrated, and refers to the hypothetical process by which the microtubule associated proteins (MAPs) influence or orchestrate the quantum processing of the microtubules.

Quantum computation:
The theory also proposes that microtubules act as quantum computers. Quantum computing, which currently exists only in the form of research prototypes, and faces formidable technical problems, is based on the non-local entanglement of quantum particles or qbits, with the amount of computing power doubling with each new particle that the computer entangles.

Existing designs for man-made quantum computers use superpositions such as electron spin or photon polarization. These do not have significant superpositioned/separated mass, and thus E (energy) would be tiny, and t (time to collapse) long. In practise collapse would be a result of a measurement or interaction with the environment and would having nothing to do with OR, which is only suggested to happen after the spacetime separation between superpositions has grown to the Planck length.

Thus normal quantum computing does not involve consciousness, because the computation would be terminated by a measurement rather than Penrose-style objective reduction. However, Penrose accepts that with future technology it might be possible to build a conscious computer. This future technology would have to involve superpositions with greater mass/energy to generate self collapse within a reasonable time scale.

An Algorithm for Perception:
The existence of quantum computing in the brain has been seen as a solution to problems of brain function other than consciousness (45.&46. Kanade 1980 & 1981). Many commentators on the subject take the view that no adequate algorithms for perception and related decision taking have yet been identified in the brain. When it is necessary to make a choice out of a potentially infinite number of possibilities, such as for instance, a prey animal might choose when confronted by a predator, the problem proves intractable for any classical computer, but can be solved almost instantaneously by the brain of a gazelle confronted by a lion. These problems look similar to those which have, for nearly half a century, dogged artificial intelligence, where despite major investment, and a huge rise in computing power, it has not yet proved possible to build robots capable of autonomous performance of everyday tasks.

The Decoherence Question:
The most formidable objection to quantum consciousness is that the environment of the brain would lead to the rapid decoherence of quantum states (47. Tegmark, 2000). The strength of this argument has been considerably undermined by a series of experiments since 2007 (Engel et al, 2007; Lee et al 2007; Sarovar et al, 2007; Collini et al, 2007) showing the long-term quantum coherence at high temperatures is the basis of the efficiency of energy transport in some photosynthetic proteins in bacteria. While these organisms are very diffierent from brains, the core argument that decoherence rules out quantum features in brain protein now appears dubious.

In the first of these experiments, Engel et al published a paper in Nature (57.) on quantum coherence in the photosynthetic systems of plants. The authors claim evidence for long-lived quantum coherence being involved in energy transfer within these systems. The wavelike process is suggested to account for the efficiency of the system, because it allows the sampling of large areas to find the most efficient path. The system is indicated to be in touch with many states simultaneously, performing a single quantum computation and selecting a correct answer. The process is said to be analogous to Grover’s algorithm and to be more efficient than any search engine that could be run on a classical computer. While plants are clearly very different in structure from brains, the salient point is that they are complex environments in which quantum coherence would not normally be expected to persist at any temperature in which the plants themselves could survive.

Prior to these experiments, Hameroff’s main counter argument has been to propose that microtubules and other parts of the cytoskeleton are screened from conditions in the rest of the brain. The main form of screening proposed involves the cyclical transformation of the interior of the cell from a watery solution into a gel or quasi-solid, in which state the water close to the microtubule proteins becomes ordered, as the electric dipoles of the water molecules become aligned with those of the cytoskeleton biomolecules. The combination of the gel state and the ordered water is postulated by Hameroff to provide screening to the microtubules. It is also argued that biological tissues are a long way from thermal equilibrium, and that energy pumping within the microtubules could allow Bose-Einstein condensates to exist at higher temperatures than the normal requirement of only a few degrees Kelvin above absolute zero. Apart from this, there has been other rather sporadic experimental evidence for instances of quantum coherence in biological tissue. In 1996, Science published an exchange between Gider et al, who claimed to have observed macroscopic quantum coherence in the protein ferritin and and Tejeda and Garg who criticised their findings (49. ). Work by the Warren group at Princeton (50-52.) demonstrated quantum coherence between nuclear spins in separate molecules. These effects were artificially produced as part of their research into MRI scanning. Matsuno at the Nagaoko University of Technology has suggested that magnetisation of entire actin filaments is an indicator of macroscopic quantum coherence. Prokhorenko working on retinal molecules claimed results that showed that the wave properties of matter can be observed and even manipulated in protein (53). R.H.S. Carpenter (54-6.) reports a study of eye saccades that he interprets to indicate a deliberate randomisation by neural processes, which is suggestive of quantum activity.

Ion Channels and Consciousness - Gustav Bernroider
Bernroider and Roy propose a quantum information system in the brain that is driven by the entangled ion states in the voltage-gated ion channels. These ion channels, situated in the neuron’s membrane are a crucial component of the conventional neuroscience description of axon spiking leading to neural transmitter release at the synapses. The ion channels allow the influx and outflux of ions from the cell driving the fluctuation of electrical potential along the axon, which in turn provides the necessary signal to the synapse.

The authors concentrate their attention on the potassium (K+) channel and in particular the configuration of this channel when it is in the closed state. This channel is traditionally seen as having the function of resetting the membrane potential from a firing to a resting state. This is achieved by positively charged potassium (K+) ions flowing out of the neuron through the channel.

Recent progress in atomic-level spectroscopy of the membrane proteins that constitute the ion channels and the accompanying molecular dynamic simulations indicate that the organisation of the membrane proteins carries a logical coding potency, and also implies quantum entanglement within ion channels and possibly also between different ion channels. An increasing number of studies show that proteins surrounding membrane lipids are associated with the probabilistic nature of the gating of the ion channels (58. Doyle, 1998, 59. Zhou, 2001, 60. Kuyucak, 2001).

The authors draw particularly on the work of MacKinnon and his group, notably his crystallographic X-ray work. (61-64.). The study shows that ions are coordinated by carboxyl based oxygen atoms or by water molecules. An ion channel can be in either a closed or an open state, and in the closed state there are two ions in the permeation path that are confined there. The authors regard this closed gate arrangement as the essential feature with regard to their research work. The open gate presents very little resistance to the flow of potassium ions, but the closed gate is a stable ion-protein configuration.

The ion channel serves two functions, selecting K+ ions as the ones that will be given access through the membrane, and then voltage-gating the flow of the permitted K+ ions. In the authors’ view, recent studies also require a change in views both of the ion permeation and of the voltage-gating process. A charge transfer carried by amino acids is involved in the gating process. In the traditional model the charges were completely independent, whereas in the new model there is coupling with the lipids that lie next to the channel proteins. This view, which came originally from MacKinnon, is now supported by other more recent studies . The authors think that the new gating models are more likely to support computational activity, than were the traditional models.

Three potassium ions are involved in the ion channel’s closed configuration. Two of these are trapped in the permeation path of the protein, when the channel gate is closed. The filter region of the ion channel is indicated by the recent studies to have five binding pockets in the form of five sets of four carboxyl related oxygen atoms. Each of the two trapped potassium ion are bound to eight of the oxygen atoms, i.e. each of them are bound to two out of the five binding pockets. The author’s calculations predict that the trapped ions will oscillate many times before the channel re-opens, and the calculations also suggest an entangled state between the potassium ions and the binding oxygen atoms. This structure is seen as being delicately balanced and sensitive to small fluctuations in the external field. This sensitivity is viewed as possibly being able to account for the observed variations in cortical responses.

Ion Channels and Quantum Computing:
The theory also relates the results of recent studies of the potassium channel and its electrical properties to the requirements for quantum computing. There have been schemes for quantum computers involving ion traps, based on electostatic interactions between ions held in microscopic traps, that have a resemblance to Bernroider’s interpretation of the possible quantum state of the K+ channel.

The authors deny that the rapid decoherence of quantum states in the brain calculated by Tegmark applies to their model. They argue that the ions are not freely moving in the ion filter area of the closed potassium channel, but are held in place by the surrounding electrical charges and the external field. The ions are particularly insulated within the carboxyl binding pockets, and it is suggested the decoherence could be avoided for the whole of the gating period of the channel, which is in the range of 10-13 seconds.

Entanglement and Ion Channels:
The authors also raise the question of whether given quantum coherence in the ion channel, it is possible for the channel states to be communicated to the rest of the cell membrane. This could include connections to other ion channels in the same membrane, possibly by means of quantum entanglement.

Bernroider’s work might not be considered to be a fully fledged separate quantum consciousness theory. In the early part of the decade, Bernroider seemed to associate himself with David Bohm’s implicate order, but the lack of much specific neuroscience in Bohm’s version makes it hard to make any definite connection between it and the type of detailed neuroscientific argument offered by Bernroider.

Bernroider can be seen to differ from the various quantum brain dynamics theories that derive from Umezawa, in concentrating on quantum mechanics rather than quantum field theory, and in not giving a major role to water. It also varies from Orch OR in focusing on the cell membrane rather than the cytoskeleton and on the axons rather than the dendrites, and by dealing with simple ions rather than Bose condensates. However, it is possible to speculate that wave function collapse under the Bernroider proposals could still result in objective reduction, and thus provide a link to Penrose’s fundamental spacetime geometry.

Bernroider’s theory might be seen to represent even more of a challenge to conventional neuroscience than the other quantum consciousness theories. This is because its recruits as its basis the axon membrane and ion channels which form a crucial part of the conventional neuroscience model, and then tries to remodel these core structures on a quantum-driven basis. It is hard to deny that if this theory were to become better substantiated, it would produce in neuroscience a revolution of the most profound kind.

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