Quantum Effects in neuroscience

When Classical Physics Cannot Explain Neural Data

Quantum biology is an emerging scientific discipline that studies the possible role of quantum phenomena (such as tunneling coherence, entanglement) in biological processes and in particular essential biological functions. Quantum coherence has been measured in photosynthesis, quantum tunnelling in enzyme catalysis, radical pair mechanisms in avian magnetoreception. These are established findings (Marais, A., et al., 2018).

In neurosicence, the concept of quantum mechanics was introduced in a speculative way as “quantum consciousness”, by physicist Roger Penrose and anaesthesiologist Stuart Hameroff, positing that consciousness would arise from “quantum computations within microtubules”. As the reader will see later in this post, I am quite open to new concepts and theories, but I never considered this theory as serious…