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. 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.
“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.”
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