Quantum Evidence 2

Papers, articles etc. relative to evidence of quantum coherence in biological systems

1.) The Ascent of Life - Paul Davies

2.) Quantum coherence demonstrated in the brain - Stuart Hameroff - Discusses quantum spin of nuclei in the brain

3.) Magnetic quantum coherence in muscle contraction - K. Matsuno

4.) Coherent control of isomerisation - Prokhorenko, V.

5.) Non-local correlation between neural networks - Pizzi, R.

6.) Studies suggestive of quantum states in organic matter and macroscopic entangled states.

The Ascent of life

Paul Davies

As a physicist, Paul Davies, starts by noting that living organisms represent a state of matter in a class apart from all other matter. The cell is the basic subunit of living matter, and is now understood to be full of nanomachines in the form of the organelles, cytoskeleton, receptors and synapses. Davies discusses Heisenberg's uncertainty principle as a possible objection to quantum involvement in brain processes. Uncertainty is a potential problem for living organisms, because replication requires the accurate coordination of molecules. Uncertainty principle is usually explained in terms of not being able to know both the exact position and exact momentum of a quantum particle. The more one knows about one, the less one can know about the other. However, the same constraint applies to other aspects of a quantum particle, such as time and energy. Time uncertainty represents a problem with respect to living organisms, because the uncertainty compromises the accuracy of timing that is vital to life, which depends on the timely organisation of molecules for replication and other processes.

In fact, it is possible to calculate the minimum size of a clock of a given accuracy. This calculation derives from the physicist, Eugene Wigner, in the 1950s. Wigner’s calculation has thrown up some interesting correlations in terms of various organisms, in circumstances where these can be regarded as clocks. For mycoplasma cells, it is possible to calculate a reliability time limit of about an hour for internal time keeping. It now transpires that their reproductive cycle also takes an hour. The internal components of the cell are much smaller than the cell itself and have a correspondingly shorter period of accurate time keeping, but despite this similar instances arise at the cellular coponent level. Thus the polymerase enzyme that moves along the unzipped strands of DNA covers a bit over 100 base pairs per second, which is in line with the minimum speed required to retain accuracy of timekeeping at the quantum level. Protein folding times have also been shown to be close to the limit allowed if accuracy of quantum time keeping is to be retained.

It is also suggested that quantum mechanics may play a more positive role in organisms. Apoorva Patel at the Indian Institute of Science proposes that quantum mechanics could be involved in speeding up the process by which polymerase finds bases to bind to the DNA strand. It is suggested that this could involve an application of Grover’s algorithm, an algorithm that manmade quantum computers might eventually use to search massive and jumbled databases. The DNA strand has four bases, three letters of this strand at a time code for the amino acids, and there are 20 amino acids. Biologists have often speculated about the apparently arbitrary nature of these numbers. Patel points out that 3, 4 and 20 would emerge naturally from the application of Grover’s algorithm.

Genetic mutation has often been suggested to be the result of quantum fluctuations. Jonjoe McFadden and Jim Al-Khalili at Surrey University suggested that the ability of bacteria to respond to shortage of nutrients might have a quantum origin.

A final suggestion is that quantum processes might have been involved in the origin of life on Earth. The odds against a replicator emerging from a soup of molecules are usually calculated to be very high, and some form of quantum search, making use of Grover’s algorithm could have facilitated the emergence of the first replicators. If quantum processes were involved in the origin of life, it is likely that they would have been retained as organisms evolved.

At the end of his paper, Davies discusses the extent to which decoherence is a problem for quantum processes in biological tissue. He agrees that a simple model shows that decoherence in biological tissue will happen much too quickly for quantum processes to be biologically useful. However, he points out that simple models often fail to take account of all the relevant features in real systems. For instance, in some situations, decoherence does not proceed at a uniform rate, but the collapse of part of a system to the classical level creates conditions that protect the quantum coherence of the remainder of the system.

Davies further reminds us that it was Schrödinger’s 1944 book ‘What if Life?’ that inspired Crick to study DNA. Schrödinger had correctly guessed that genetic information was encoded in large molecules. What has now been air brushed from mainstream scientific history is that he and others expected living organisms to prove to be fundamentally quantum.

Quantum coherence demonstrated in the brain

Stuart Hameroff

Higher strength magnets used in modern NMR and MRI have demonstrated interesting quantum behaviour such as large amplitude echoes, which researchers such as W. S. Warren and colleagues at Princeton think can be best understood in terms of intermolecular quantum coherence (IMQC). This involves dipole couplings of superpositions of distant spins. Only dipole-to-dipole couplings could effect spins on distant molecules in this way. What is effectively a measurement on one spin as a result of the NMR process, causes a distant entangled spin to collapse. A separate study by Rizi et al (2000) found intermolecular coherence in a variety of brain sites including the periventricular gray, and the frontal, pre-motor, parietal and occipital cortex. In the cortex coherence was sustained for around the 25ms, and this is taken by Hameroff to suggest the possibility of a link to the 40 Hz gamma synchrony, which has sometimes been viewed as a correlate of consciousness.

In a posting two days later also to be found in the quantum mind archive on Hameroff’s website, Erhard Bieberich pointed out that the NMR studies mentioned above deal with the spin of nuclei, which are well shielded from the environment by their own electrons, and therefore take a relatively long time to decohere. The Orch OR proposition for quantum coherence in microtubules involves electrons, so the NMR experiments are of limited relevance to the model. However, Hameroff finds any sign of quantum coherence in the brain encouraging. This is not entirely surprising given the blanket dismissiveness of main stream thinking in this area.

References:-

Richter, W., Richter, M., Warren, W.S. et al - Functional magnetic resonance imaging with intermolecular multiple-quantum coherences - Magnetic Resonance Imaging, (2000), 18, pp. 489-94

Richter, W., Warren, W.S. et al (1993) - Generation of impossible cross-peaks between bulk water and biomolecules in solution NMR - Science, 262, pp. 2005-9

Richter, W., Warren, W.S. et al (1995) - Imaging with intermolecular multiple quantum coherences in solution nuclear magnetic resonance - Science, 267, pp. 654-7

Vathyam, S., Lee, S., & Warren, W.S. (1996) - Homogeneous NMR spectra in inhomogeneous fields - Science, 272, pp. 92-96

Warren, W.S., Richter, W. Rizi, R. et al (1998) - Intermolecular zero quantum coherences - Science, 281, pp.247-51

Rizi, R.R., Richter, W. et al (2000) - Intermolecular zero-quantum coherence imaging of the human brain - Magnetic Resonance in Medicine, 43, pp. 627-32

Magnetic quantum coherence in muscle contraction

Hatori, K., Honda, H., & Matsuno, K.

Dept. of Bioengineering, Nagaoka University of Technology, Japan

An actin filament involved in muscle contraction can induce magnetic dipoles along the five micrometre length of the filament. The magnetic dipoles are coherent over the entire filament, although they are subject to thermal agitation. In an interview, Professor Matsuno said that the magnetic dipoles remained robust even when at room temperature. The actin filament is in effect a ferromagnet. Ferromagnetism on this mesoscopic scale is known to be quantum mechanical. Magnetisation in this form appears to stem from closed current loops of charged particles such as electrons or protons. Electrons are confined within the actin monomer, although protons may be involved via hydrolysis. This only occurs in actin filaments in the presence of ATP, suggesting that this form of coherence is a feature of living organisms.

Coherent control of isomerisation in bacteriorrhodopsin

Prokhorenko, V.

Dept. of Chemistry & Physics, University of Toronto

Science, 01/09/2006, vol. 313, No. 5791, pp. 1257-61

An experiment demonstrated optical control of the primary step of photoisomerisation of retinal molecules. Pulses involved in the process were phase sensitive at intensities that were too low to access electronic states. It was therefore concluded that isomerisation was steered through quantum interference effects. The result thus shows that the wave properties of matter can be observed and manipulated in a system as large and complex as a protein.

Modern spectroscopic techniques have produced evidence of interference at the molecular level, and have used it to steer chemical reactions. However, these involved small molecules or ions. Very complex protein molecules looked to be a different situation. The thing to look at is the degree of conserved phase relationships or quantum coherence within a chemical process in a protein environment. Some excitation pulses can manipulate a process faster than random thermal activity can act to cause decoherence. Photoisomerisation of the retinal molecule in rhodopsin proteins is one of the fastest biological processess in this respect. It has been the subject of intense investigation.

Non-local correlation between neural networks

Pizzi, R., Dept. of Information Technology, Milan University

The experiment used human neurons grown from a common stock of neural stem cells, but separated from one another in electromagnetically shielded basins. One sample is exposed to laser pulses that generates event related potentials. The unstimulated culture was shown to generate bursts of potentials in synchrony with the stimulated culture.

References:-
1.) Pizzi, R. et al (2004) - Non-local correlation between human neural networks in: Donker, E. et al Eds. - Quantum Information and computation 11. Proceedings of Spies: 436: 107-117

Studies suggestive of quantum states in organic matter and/or macroscopic or high temperature quantum entanglement

Stuart Hameroff's website is recently running a useful section that tracks studies on macroscopic quantum entanglement and related topics. A study by Iannis Kominis on the ability of migratory birds to navigate by means of the Earth's magnetic field connects this ability to the birds' retinal proteins. These are described as having spin dependent ion pairs. The interplay between the unpaired electrons of these ion pairs governs the relationship to the magnetic field. The observed long lifetime of the spin coherence allows the system to pick up the weak geomagnetic field. The author considers that this is relevant to similar mechanisms in photosynthetic systems reported by Engel et al in Nature, 2007. The latter are seen as important evidence of quantum states in normal temperature organic matter.

In Physical Review Letters, the Mohanty Group at Boston University reports quantum oscillations in silicon antennae comprised of about 50bn atoms. This is claimed to be the largest observation of quantum mechanical behavior to date.

Again in Physical Review Letters, (96, 060407), Aires Ferreira et al claim entanglement between an electromagnetic field in an optical cavity and a mirror evolving over time and at arbitrarily high temperatures.

The AIST Diamond Research Centre has detected exciton emissions in diamond film conductors at 300K, and it is speculated that these emissions could occur even at room temperatures.

Benjamin et al report in quant-ph 0511198 that C60, otherwise known as fullerenes or buckballs could provide a potential architecture for coherent quantum information. Individual atoms can be in quantum superposition within a permanent molecular scaffolding. Clatharins, similar in structure to fullerenes are present in synapses.