Physics-based theories of consciousness must explain how distributed neural activity can constitute a single complex experience. Multiple electromagnetic field theories claim that fields solve this phenomenal binding problem because they are (i) physically unified as spatially extended objects, (ii) continuous, and/or (iii) information-distributing, and thereby address critiques levied against...
Editorial: Quantum and quantum-like effects across neuroscience, volume 1. For about thirty years now a growing literature has applied quantum probability theory to successfully describe a wide range of statistical question-answering phenomena in psychology that appear irrational from a classical perspective (1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11). In the present volume, (12) presents a systematic motivation...
Inhalational anesthetics are currently believed to cause unconsciousness by acting on multiple molecular targets including neural ion channels, receptors, mitochondria, synaptic proteins, and cytoskeletal proteins. Inhalational anesthetics including isoflurane bind to cytoskeletal microtubules (MTs), potentially contributing to causing unconsciousness. This possibility is supported by our...
Contemporary researchers tend to assume that inhalational anesthetics cause unconsciousness by targeting a varying combination of ion channels and receptors, synaptic proteins, mitochondria, and cytoskeletal proteins including microtubules (MTs). However, this viewpoint does not account for striking empirical facts suggesting that unconsciousness is mediated by a single primary molecular target...
Recent experimental evidence, briefly reviewed here, points to intraneuronal microtubules as a functional target of inhalational anesthetics. This finding is consistent with the general hypothesis that the biophysical substrate of consciousness is a collective quantum state of microtubules and is specifically predicted by the Orchestrated Objective Reduction theory of Penrose and Hameroff. I...
In the first of two companion papers, we argued that classical neural mechanisms proposed to implement conscious active inference had failed to establish their biological plausibility in terms of realistic biophysical models. We further explained that conscious (temporally deep) active inference is mathematically equivalent to the path integral that underlies quantum dynamics. As such, we...
Active inference is a general framework for optimizing the behavior and learning of a sentient agential system. It may be interpreted as a general theory of sentient behavior and has been used to quantitatively model a wide variety of perceptual and behavioral contexts. Moreover, variables in neural process models of active inference appear to be represented by specific pathways in the brain,...
Volatile anesthetics are currently believed to cause unconsciousness by acting on one or more molecular targets including neural ion channels, receptors, mitochondria, synaptic proteins, and cytoskeletal proteins. Anesthetic gases including isoflurane bind to cytoskeletal microtubules (MTs) and dampen their quantum optical effects, potentially contributing to causing unconsciousness. This...