The Entwined Mysteries of Anesthesia and Consciousness: Is There a Common Underlying

The Entwined Mysteries of Anesthesia and Consciousness: Is There a Common Underlying Mechanism?

Stuart Hammeroff

Field theories gave way to computer analogies, but zero-phase-lag γ synchrony has rekindled collective field approaches to binding and consciousness. Some theories suggest complex, brain-wide electromagnetic fields generated by neural electrophysiology manifest binding and consciousness.93 But neuronal-based electromagnetic fields are shunted by glia and too weak to account for long-range coherence.26,27 

An important clue may be that anesthetic gases are the only pharmacologic agents that act without forming covalent or ionic bonds with their targets (as far as their nonpolar effects are concerned). Relatively selective in affecting consciousness while sparing other brain activities, anesthetic gases act via  London forces which are quantum interactions.

Quantum implies the smallest units of matter and energy, but at the quantum level (e.g.  , atomic and subatomic scales), the laws of physics differ strangely from our everyday “classical” world. Quantum particles (1) can interconnect nonlocally and correlate instantaneously over distance (quantum entanglement, long-range dipole correlations), (2) can unify into single entities (quantum coherence, condensation), and also (3) can behave as waves and exist in two or more states or locations simultaneously (quantum superposition). When superpositioned particles are measured or observed, they immediately reduce to single, definite states or locations, known as quantum state reduction or “collapse of the wave function.” Superposition and quantum state reduction are used in quantum computers in which information (e.g.  , bits of 1 or 0) may be temporarily represented as quantum information (e.g.  , quantum bits, or qubits, of both 1 and 0), which reduces to classical information as output.94 

It is generally assumed that quantum effects are confined to atomic scales, but the boundary between quantum and classical domains is ill-defined, and quantum effects can occur at macroscopic sizes.

See also Curr Top Med Chem. 2015;15(6):523-33

Anesthetics act in quantum channels in brain microtubules to prevent consciousness

The mechanism by which anesthetic gases selectively prevent consciousness and memory (sparing non-conscious brain functions) remains unknown. At the turn of the 20(th) century Meyer and Overton showed that potency of structurally dissimilar anesthetic gas molecules correlated precisely over many orders of magnitude with one factor, solubility in a non-polar, 'hydrophobic' medium akin to olive oil. In the 1980s Franks and Lieb showed anesthetics acted in such a medium within proteins, suggesting post-synaptic membrane receptors. But anesthetic studies on such proteins yielded only confusing results. In recent years Eckenhoff and colleagues have found anesthetic action in microtubules, cytoskeletal polymers of the protein tubulin inside brain neurons. 'Quantum mobility' in microtubules has been proposed to mediate consciousness. Through molecular modeling we have previously shown: (1) olive oil-like non-polar, hydrophobic quantum mobility pathways ('quantum channels') of tryptophan rings in tubulin, (2) binding of anesthetic gas molecules in these channels, and (3) capabilities for π-electron resonant energy transfer, or exciton hopping, among tryptophan aromatic rings in quantum channels, similar to photosynthesis protein quantum coherence. Here, we show anesthetic molecules can impair π-resonance energy transfer and exciton hopping in tubulin quantum channels, and thus account for selective action of anesthetics on consciousness and memory.

A team including Luca Turin carried out a difficult experiment on anestherics in fruit flies in 2014, showing changes in spin. Despite the limitations of how they chose to immobilise the files, they did get a result that suggests they are on the right track... (for some reason there is some enmity between Hameroff and Turin, even though they are both working on the same issue, they rarely refer to each other’s ideas, other than when sticking the knife in).

https://www.researchgate.net/publication...ophila/amp

Turin's also doing the quantum smell stuff right? 

This and the photon through the eyes experiments are very curious, naturally I'm hoping that get us further into "quantum consciousness" investigation.

Luca Turin is the quantum smell guy, yes.

Magnetobiology is well established now... as are the effects of hyperweak magnetic fields... so there is no going back. These fields are so weak, that the observed effects can only really have a quantum explanation... it seems down at at the level of spin, angular momentum and precession at least.

Two of my favorite papers... Landler et al 2015, and then Prato et al 2013. They take time to understand, but they are worth it.

Thanks! The one about sea turtles is a really appreciated reference, I recall the suggestion that the turtles were encoding information in the field beyond their bodies but can't recall how far that idea went...

A year old but from what my limited self can gather I think this is a good summary describing what Hameroff is up to and where he possibly sees research in this arena heading ->

Anesthetic Action and “Quantum Consciousness”: A Match Made in Olive Oil

Stuart R. Hameroff, M.D.

“Quantum consciousness” theories suggest that entanglement, coherence, and quantum computing occur in the brain, offering potential solutions to challenges in cognitive neuroscience, e.g., the “binding problem.” In conscious vision, perceptual information for an object’s shape, color, motion, and meaning is processed at different times in different areas of visual cortex (V1, V2, V3, and so forth). Yet somehow, the disparate content is “bound together” in unified scenes, e.g., a red kite flapping in the wind. More generally, auditory, tactile, olfactory, and visual sensory modalities, along with memory and feelings, all apparently processed in different brain locations at different times, are also bound together, integrated, in unified conscious perceptions. (Indeed, Mashour2 has suggested “unbinding” as the key effect of anesthetic action.) Einstein’s “spooky action at a distance”—entanglement—may quite literally bind and integrate disparate brain content into unified conscious moments, like frames in a film or video. Sequences of such moments can give rise to our familiar stream of consciousness.

But anesthetic action suggests consciousness also involves electron cloud dipole pairs. Such pairs have integer spin numbers and are “bosons,” which disobey the Pauli exclusion principle and can condense into unitary coherent states. The relationship between (nuclear spin) fermions and (electron pair) bosons is unclear. Perhaps the rotational force of nuclear spin magnetic moments (torque) “tunes” or pumps quantum electromechanical activity in neuronal membrane and/or microtubule proteins to increase their vibrational frequency, the opposite of anesthetic dampening, and thus “promote” consciousness.

Quantum consciousness theories portray the brain as a multiscale hierarchy originating in quantum vibrational states at small, fast scales inside proteins in the neuronal membrane and/or cytoskeleton. These may amplify and resonate upward over many orders of magnitude (figs. 1 and 2). Rather than a computer, the brain may be more like an orchestra; rather than a computational output, consciousness may be more like music.

Hameroff's theory is intriguing, but it seems to me there is the old fundamental problem that insists in persisting, a hard nut to crack - Chalmers' famous Hard Problem of consciousness. Hameroff can't evade it.

The properties of conscious awareness are in an entirely different existential realm than the properties of matter, energy and space. Some examples with conscious awareness:

- intentionality - the quality of directing toward achieving an object
- aboutness: being about something
- this object of aboutness may be totally immaterial as in abstract thought, i.e. a thought about the number pi
- subjectivity
- qualities of subjective awareness - i.e. blueness, redness, loudness, softness

What are the properties of the biological/neurological quantum phenomena Hameroff believes underlies consciousness? That is, of things like "π-resonance energy transfer and exciton hopping in tubulin quantum channels"? These are the ultimately physically measurable physics parameters involved in "quantum entanglement, long-range dipole correlations, quantum coherence and condensation, and waves existing in two or more states or locations simultaneously (quantum superposition)". After quantum state reduction or "collapse of the wave function", measured classical parameters include forces, field strengths, masses, charges, velocities, etc. All of this amounts to "things" of some sort, not thoughts.

The properties of mental phenomena such as the examples given can't be derived from the properties of the ultimately physical phenomena utilized by Hameroff's theories. They are in entirely different existential categories.

So this seems to leave consciousness out in the cold as some sort of epiphenomenal illusion, where what it is that is experiencing this illusion is undefined. But consciousness can't be a powerless epiphenomenon because consciousness has causative power in the world. To use the word "emergent" is just to evoke another mysterious miracle. The core mystery remains, unexplained by Orch-OR.

Hameroff's theory is intriguing, but it seems to me there is the old fundamental problem that insists in persisting, a hard nut to crack - Chalmers' famous Hard Problem of consciousness. Hameroff can't evade it.

IIRC neither Hameroff nor Penrose are materialists.

The Science of Consciousness Interlaken - Switzerland June 25-28, 2019 June 28, 2019

Plenary 9 - Quantum Brain

George Mashour, Modern Anesthetic Ethers Demonstrate Quantum Interactions with Entangled Photons

Stuart Hameroff, Consciousness, Anesthetic Action and EEG All Derive from Quantum Vibrations in Microtubules?

Felix Scholkmann, Neurophotonics: The Role of Light in Investigating and Understanding Brain Function

Center for Consciousness Studies The University of Arizona www.consciousness.arizona.edu