Consciousness, Cognition and the Neuronal Cytoskeleton – A New Paradigm Needed in Neuroscience
Frontiers in Molecular Neuroscience June 16, 2022 S. Hameroff
The brain cannot be fully explained by viewing it as a computer of simple neurons. Single-cell organisms without synapses perform intelligent functions using cytoskeletal microtubules. A new paradigm is proposed: the brain is a scale-invariant hierarchy extending upward through neuronal networks and downward into quantum and classical processes inside microtubules. Evidence shows self-similar conductive resonances across terahertz, gigahertz, megahertz, kilohertz, and hertz frequencies in microtubules, originating from quantum dipole oscillations among aromatic amino acids in tubulin. Cultured neuronal networks show that gigahertz and megahertz oscillations in dendritic-somatic microtubules regulate specific firings of distal axonal branches, modulating membrane and synaptic activities. Quantum and classical processes in microtubules are critical to consciousness and cognition.