Stanislav Reinis,
Department of Psychology,
University of Waterloo,
Waterloo, ON., Canada
sreinis@watarts.uwaterloo.ca
original doc: paper_Medical_Hypotheses.doc
Abstract
A hypothesis explaining the origin of the human mind and consciousness is presented in this paper.
Neurons, during their activity, produce a number of free electrons which are in a quantum state. The laws of classical physics must be replaced here by laws of quantum mechanics. During the translocation, the electrons are in the state of coherence. After decoherence, the translocated classical electrons may be found even in remote areas of the brain. They are, among other functions, responsible for the binding problem of the consciousness.
A force derived from the Pauli principle is responsible for information exchange between these and other electrons and thus for the generation of the highest controlling system in the brain, the human mind, and also for the subjective consciousness.
The waves of the electroencephalogram may also be explained by the same quantum mechanism, translocation of electrons from the points of their release on the surface of the acting neurons to the surface of the brain. Near the surface of the brain, decoherence of the quantum state of these electrons gives rise to the classical electrons. The accumulated translocated classical electrons generate, together with the increased postsynaptic potentials of cortical neurons, the waves of the electroencephalogram. The wavelength of the waves of the electroencephalogram probably depends on the length of the reverberation circuits in the cerebral cortex and elsewhere.
Introduction
In spite of enormous effort over the ages, a comprehensive theory of the mind and consciousness is still missing. David Chalmers, in his book “The Conscious Mind” has proposed that consciousness, like energy and mass, is a fundamental property of the universe and exists to varying degrees in all things. He believes consciousness is a universal phenomenon. This is possible because the brain, as any other object in the universe, is formed by matter with all its general attributes. It is therefore important to search for elementary mechanisms which may be common to the matter outside the brain and to the brain function. These elementary mechanisms are, generally speaking, quantum mechanisms.
There are several hypotheses explaining the brain function and consciousness by quantum mechanisms. Since the very beginning of quantum mechanics, the founders of the theory claimed that the human mind depends on quantum events (e.g., Heisenberg, 1971). Several recent authors, such as Penrose, Stapp and Zohar, produced interesting theories of the mind and consciousness based on quantum mechanisms. These theories are, however, not generally accepted. In this paper, we describe several elementary mechanisms of the brain function, some of which cannot be explained by the classical neuronal theory, and subsequently, we derive our proposal of the quantum hypothesis of the mind from them. Some ideas in this paper were published in 2005 (Reinis et al., 2005).
Generation of submicroscopic particles in the brain
Several submicroscopic particles participate in neuronal activities. Those are electrons, ions such as sodium, potassium, calcium, chloride and bicarbonate, larger molecules such as neurotransmitters, and even larger molecules such as brain peptides. In the explanation of the mechanism of consciousness, electrons are probably more important than any other particle.
During the resting state of the neuronal membrane, this membrane is polarized due to the presence of several anions and cations, in particular proteins, sodium and potassium. Beside that, many electrons bound to the inner and outer surfaces of the neuronal membrane are kept in shallow “potential wells”. The potential wells are associated with electrically charged portions of protein molecules attached to the outer and inner surfaces of the cell membrane and with the polarized heads of lipids. Those electrons, named exoelectrons, contained in a potential well and possessing energy less than that required for escape from the well will remain in that well.
A particle bound in a potential well may, under some circumstances, be pushed out from that well and be eventually found at a point distant from the well. In other words, when energy is added to such a particle, the particle escapes the well.
That happens during depolarization of the neuronal membrane. The differences of the electrical potentials on both sides of the neuronal membrane and between neighboring segments of the membrane produce an electric current, known as a circulating current. Circulating currents are formed by exoelectrons released from the potential wells by a potential difference between segments of the axonal membrane. The circulating currents, e.g., those between two nodes of Ranvier, contain a large number of free electrons.
In the formulation of the presented working hypothesis, all electric phenomena in the neuron must be considered, those taking place on the surface of the brain cells, in the cell membrane, but also those acting on the inside, in microtubules and mitochondria, as well as those involved in the conformation of protein molecules. All of them together represent a powerful source of subatomic particles. However, those inside the neuron probably participate in these processes only indirectly since they do not participate in the circulating currents.
Translocation of electrons in the brain
The moment when the electrons gain enough the energy allowing them to be pushed from their position in the potential well, they, in a quantum state, spill out of their original potential well in all directions obeying the Schroedinger equation. The laws of classical physics must be replaced by the laws of quantum mechanics. It should be emphasized that there is no real physical motion of either a quantum particle or a matter wave involved in this process. In this situation, we say that the particles are in the state of coherence. Each neuron is, therefore, a source of particles that, with their wave function in a quantum state, may fill even remote areas of space. During this process, the particles spread over the whole universe (it is mathematically possible), or at least throughout the brain. Schroedinger’s equation determines the probability of finding that particle in different places. While in a quantum state, the particle has no defined position. The square of the absolute value of the wave function determines the probability of the particle being localized in a particular region of space.
This hypothesis substantially differs from the electromagnetic theory of consciousness which is based on movements of classical electrons through the brain.
This process is somewhat complicated in the brain tissue where it takes place in the extracellular spaces which are narrow and extend to a considerable distance, up to the surface of the brain. The extracellular spaces are enclosed in firm cellular membranes. The volume of extracellular space is about 20% of the brain volume (Bruehlmeier et al. 2003). It is connected with brain ventricles and with the subdural space and filled with fluid. All of the extracellular spaces throughout the brain and are interconnected and allow the passage of quantum waves in two dimensions. These extracellular spaces in the brain are rather narrow and the arrangement resembles the theoretical so-called “particle in a box” problem. The quantum particles are restricted to a space limited by the outer walls of the formed elements, glia and neurons.
In this aspect, the brain resembles other physical systems in nature. The main idea of this section is based on the paper by Holub and Smrz (2002). These authors found a somewhat similar situation, from the viewpoint of quantum physics, in a completely different physical system. They studied and mathematically proved the penetration of submicroscopic particles through narrow gaps in rocks so that they can be detected in remote areas. According to Krcmar and Vylita (2002) the unusual mobility of solid particles in the Earth crust may be explained by several hypotheses, the one closest to the behavior observed in nature is based on quantum mechanics, on the translocation of particles along narrow spaces in the rocks.
Quantum theory requires that the wave function in the „narrow box“ describing the probability of the position of a particle be modified in such a way that it reaches a zero value on the surface of the firm impenetrable walls of the extracellular space. The wave function has to be modified by a sharp decrease near the walls of the extracellular space. Solving Schroedinger’s equation, the modification of the wave function across the intercellular space described above results in an exponential increase of the wave function along the narrow extracellular space. The narrow space may even be curved (Holub and Smrz, 2002).
There may be several possibilities to explain the role of particles in a quantum state in the activities of the brain. The possibility proposed here is based on a simple mathematical solution of the Schroedinger equation where restriction of the wave function in one or two dimensions leads to an extension in the remaining dimension(s). This restriction leads to the probability of particle localization increasing along the intercellular spaces. However, this localization has a statistical character.
The decoherence of electrons in the brain
Particles in a quantum state may return to the classical physical form of a particle by the process of decoherence. Decoherence may be nearly instantaneous. In quantum theory, decoherence means a process of transition from the quantum to the classical physical state. An important aspect in this hypothesis is that we have to distinguish a quantum particle before decoherence and a classical electron after decoherence. The wave function may exist anywhere in this space and the decoherence of the quantum waves may also occur anywhere in it. When the wave function decoheres, the particle is localized and bound to the brain structures.
This process of decoherence is still subject to a number of theories and we shall not be concerned with the details. Decoherence in the brain is too fast to sustain long-lasting coherent states. On the other hand, we expect that decoherence must be quite fast to achieve fast changes in the state of the brain. According to Tegmark (2000), decoherence in the relatively warm and wet environment of the brain appears within 10-13 to 10 -20 of a second. This is necessary for the simultaneity of numerous interactions used to accomplish the binding of functions of various parts of the CNS. The quantum state particle may decohere in any position in space and change into a real physical particle.
Decoherence further depends on contact with the classical structure of matter in the environment. A crucial role in this process is therefore played by the natural environment. To prevent decoherence, there must be space available which is not occupied by any classical form of matter. Therefore, translocation requires empty space because decoherence is caused by the interaction of the quantum with the classical environment (Zurek, 2003).
If, therefore, we consider the intercellular spaces in the brain a „narrow box“ in the sense of the Schroedinger equation, then another necessary condition is empty space. It is present between water and solute molecules in the cerebrospinal fluid of the extracellular space throughout the brain (Trincher, 1981). Still, there are molecules of water and other particles in the extracellular space of the brain that may induce decoherence but the particles do not have to decohere if an empty space is available. Decoherence therefore has a statistical character.
Also, where the intercellular gap opens into a wider space, classical physical particles are formed and bound to the adjacent brain structure. The probability of particle localization is maximal in the vicinity of the point where the narrow gap widens. This is again explained by the Schroedinger equation. This point may be located in the vicinity of the synapses or at the end of the intercellular gap, at its opening to the intercellular space on the surface of the brain.
In these considerations, we cannot avoid the possibility of other quantum mechanical interpretations, such as electron tunneling through the areas where the energy is higher than the energy of the electron. However, we believe that such an alternative proposal would make the whole process even more difficult to explain.
Functions of the translocated electrons
When the wave function collapses, the particle is localized and bound to the brain structures. After decoherence, the electrons may induce a number of physiological events. Since the warm and wet environment is not homogeneous, the decoherence of electrons takes place differently in various cellular systems and brain areas. The mechanism proposed here, including limitations caused by insulating neuronal and other membranes and myelin, may participate in the decoherence of the particles in some preferred position. Still, this mechanism has a rather general character. We postulate that the electrons after their decoherence, may cause several events:
1.Anywhere on the surface of the neuronal body or dendrite they may directly boost the amplitude of the excitatory postsynaptic potentials and decrease the amplitude of the inhibitory postsynaptic potentials.
2.They may open the electrically sensitive ionic channels and increase the amplitude of the postsynaptic excitatory and inhibitory potentials.
3.In the triggering zones in the axon hillock, they may contribute to the generation of the nerve impulses.
4.They may change some biochemical events within the cells and/or the cell membranes, e.g., by a changing the configuration of the intramolecular double bonds. It may be an isomerization of a relatively simple organic molecule, or some effect on the second messenger system.
5.They may affect the movement of synaptic vesicles to the surface membrane of the nerve endings which is induced by calcium ions, or something else what alters the excitation state of the target neuron. These and other possibilities may be elucidated experimentally by existing methods.
6.They may decohere anywhere in the brain tissue, thus form a complex field which will be described later.
These possibilities induce an increase or decrease in the firing of individual neurons. These are elementary functions of single neurons influenced by remote sources of electrons. The implications are, however, even more complicated.
Pauli Exclusion Principle
An important problem of this hypothesis is how the electrons communicate in order to produce a complex system. A generally valid communication principle is the Pauli principle. This is an example of a general principle which applies not only to electrons but also to other particles with half-integer spin (fermions). No two neighboring electrons at the same energetic level in an atom can have all quantum numbers identical. Pauli’s exclusion principle indicates that two electrons may have three identical quantum numbers but the fourth quantum number must be different. Spin is part of the quantum state of the electron, so two electrons with different spin have two different quantum numbers. However, the spin can take only two different eigenvalues.
The Pauli exclusion principle is part of one of the most basic observations of nature: particles of half-integer spin must have antisymmetric wavefunctions. The Pauli exclusion principle plays a role not only in the electron shell structure of atoms, but also in a huge number of physical phenomena. It was originally formulated for atoms. An electrically neutral atom contains bound electrons equal in number to the protons in the nucleus. Since electrons are fermions, the Pauli exclusion principle forbids them from occupying the same quantum state.
The Pauli principle functions also outside the atoms. It is responsible for the stability of matter. Molecules cannot be pushed arbitrarily close together, because the bound electrons in each molecule are forbidden from entering the same state as the electrons in other molecules.
The Pauli principle obviously requires the existence of a powerful force by which an electron informs the other electrons about its own quantum number.
There are similar observations in physics where some kind of communication must be postulated. Beside the Pauli exchange, the exchange of information between two particles is the thought experiment EPR (Einstein, Podolsky and Rosen, 1935). In this “spooky communication of two quantum particles at a distance”, as it was called by Einstein, the particles were able to communicate and alter their state by a speed exceeding the speed of light.
These verified principles, which are generally valid in nature, must function in the brain as well. The electrons that are released during the generation and spreading of the postsynaptic and action potentials and that are translocated throughout the brain communicate their quantum state to one another.
This is, presumably, the most elementary basic unit of brain function. We may call it “protoconsciousness”. However, this term has a number of meanings in the literature. Here it is, simply, a communication mechanism of electrons, some kind of powerful information function.
The Interactions of Neurons in the Brain
The human brain is composed of neurons and glia cells. The estimates of the number of neurons in the brain differ, but they reach values of up to 100 billion. Each neuron may be affected by as many as 10,000 other neurons at one time, usually through synapses. The number of synapses is enormous, estimated at 300,000 billion in the cerebral cortex. In the cerebral cortex, at least one quadrillion nerve cell transactions are executed each second (Crick, 1994). The function of the central nervous system depends on many serial and parallel interactions of masses of individual neurons. In the brain, we may observe convergence and divergence, feedbacks, reverberations and circulating nerve impulses. The reverberating neuronal circuits may be rather long, lasting up to one second (Reinis, 1997) or more. All these events participate in the functioning of neuronal networks which contain millions of neurons and billions of synapses. Such sequences of neuronal firing are required to respond to the environment in a real, sufficiently short time. These basic data show the enormity of the number of neuronal interactions which must be handled by functions of the brain.
Is it possible to solve the “hard” problem of consciousness?
As stated by Stapp (2004, p. 250), the problem of consciousness cannot be solved without considering quantum mechanics. The question is, how it can be used and what kind of dynamics is suitable for this task.
There are at least three advantages to this quantum approach: first, the temporary connection of various systems might be sufficiently fast; second, the connections may be quickly initiated and terminated; and third, quantum interactions may also help to explain subjective consciousness.
The hard problem of consciousness refers to the fact that the function of the brain explained as a great information processor may be eventually explored and analyzed to the slightest detail, but we are still unable to explain even the basic subjective sensations, those called qualia, such as feeling of colors, sounds and shapes.
Subjective consciousness itself is sometimes characterized as the most basic experience. Everything in the universe was considered to be made up of atoms, molecules, photons etc., but it seemed that the components of the mind and consciousness do not belong into any of these categories. The consciousness is real, but utterly unexplainable in any terms hitherto familiar to science. Thus, it stands as an extra fact that demands explanation.
Therefore, we searched for an event present at the very basic fundamental level, common both to the brain and to the universe, which can be used as the most elementary building stone of subjective consciousness. It must at the same time stand as a fundamental building mechanism of the universe, and still aggregate into full-blown human consciousness under certain conditions or in certain types of systems.
Our proposal is that this basic level of consciousness depends on electrons. The electrons in the brain are generated by neuronal activity and translocated through the brain. They form a field in the brain which is able to activate a number of neurons. The motion of any one electron is strongly coupled to the motion of other electrons in the system. To describe the quantum mechanical behavior of electrons, it is necessary to calculate the many-electron wavefunction for the system.
In such a field, another factor controlling the actions of the electrons is the Pauli Exclusion Principle which states that it is not possible for two fermions to exist at the same point in space with the same set of quantum numbers. This principle is manifest as an effective repulsion between any pair of identical electrons possessing the same set of quantum numbers.
The exchange force, accomplishing the repulsion between two fermions due to the Pauli principle, is important mainly at small distances. This is a quantum effect acting bidirectionally and in a rather complicated way. It must read all the components of the quantum numbers, refer them back to the electron which emitted the exchange force and both electrons must behave accordingly. The exchange force is therefore able to accomplish more than the four elementary forces do.
This effect is repulsive just for fermions with an identical quantum number and, possibly together with the elementary electromagnetic force, forms an enormously complex system, a quantum field of electron interactions which is a unifying principle of the brain, the human “mind”.
This is the basic fact of the Pauli principle. The electrons “feel” the presence of other electrons at a certain distance and respond to it. This basic function of electrons is closest to the feeling of “consciousness”. We propose that this communication ability is also the most basic unit of consciousness, a basic “protoconsciousness”.
We have to stress that this model of the mind and consciousness is composed of two components. One is the mass activity of neurons, responsible for the informational content of the brain activity, and the second is the massive action of electrons. Together they make the highest controlling system in the brain, the human mind, associated with the consciousness.
The human mind and consciousness therefore depend on the interactions of submicroscopic particles in the brain, and in particular on the Pauli exchange force.
The activity of neurons generates a massive number of particles which is able to influence the actions of many target neurons. The affected target neurons generate another set of particles. The process goes forward indefinitely and very quickly and requires a fast decoherence rate. It renews itself continuously, always when a new particle enters or leaves it.
Since the function of the brain changes with each fraction of a second, this high-level controlling system changes as well. Some considerations described in a previous paragraph indicate how numerous are the components of the whole system of the human mind and how often they alter their function. Inhibitory and excitatory mechanisms must cooperate in order to make this system meaningful.
We assume that this system must be limited in its activities by inhibitory influences, local hyperpolarizations. Excessive firing must be prevented because it will interfere with a proper function of the brain.
The difference between mind and consciousness changes and the transition is not very sharp (Merikle, 2000). Some brain activities do not enter consciousness. It is possible that unconscious actions just involve a smaller number of neurons. The fields where large masses of neurons are activated simultaneously contain a conscious activity of the moment. In the next fraction of a second, this area containing consciousness moves somewhere else.
EEG – window on the mind
Associated with this hypothesis on the role of exoelectrons in the brain is the generation of the electroencephalogram. Electroencephalogram reflects a general state of brain function, from the deepest coma to the highest levels of a conscious intellectual activity. It is, as stated by Nunez and Srinivasan (2006), a window on the mind. The literature concerning this subject is overwhelming. Correlations exist between EEG and cognitive mental calculations, listening to music, speech, watching pictures, mental interpretation, reading, motor processes and other special brain activities.
In early papers, the action potentials of individual neurons were thought to form the EEG (Adrian and Matthews, 1934). But, the action potentials of neurons hardly resemble the waves of the electroencephalogram. Their shapes are completely different, and the amplitude of the neuronal potentials is expressed in millivolts whereas the amplitude of the electroencephalogram waves is measured in microvolts. Most authors, including many textbooks, claim that the electroencephalogram is produced in the most superficial layers of the cerebral cortex by the flow of synaptic currents through extracellular space. The potentials are added by superposition. The synaptic currents form the “synaptic action fields”.
Common theories of the origin of the electroencephalogram therefore assume that the waves of the electroencephalogram are generated by a millisecond scale modulation of synaptic transmission in the masses of neurons over a large area of the cortex (Eccles, 1984, Freeman, 2005, Nunez and Srinivasar, 2006). Eccles proposed that EEG activities are generated by summed postsynaptic potentials arising from synchronized excitation of cortical neurons. Intracellular recordings from cortical neurons later demonstrated a close correspondence between EEG/LFP activity and synaptic potentials (Creutzfeldt et al., 1966).
The current view is that EEG waves are generated by synchronized synaptic currents arising on cortical neurons, possibly through the formation of dipoles (Nunez, 1981). The incoming excitatory signal at the synapse gives rise to a post-synaptic potential resulting from positively charged ions rushing into the cell. This leaves a relatively negative charge in the extracellular space in the vicinity of the synapse. The inward current at the synapse flows down the dendrite and ultimately moves outward across the cell membrane at sites distant from the synapse. The outward flow of positive charge leaves a relatively positive charge in the extracellular space. At this instant there is a dipole outside the dendrite, with a relatively negative charge at the distal part of the dendrite and a positive charge closer to the cell body. The summation of the dipoles formed at each of thousands of neurons creates an electrical potential detectable on the scalp.
In all these considerations, one factor was incompletely known, and that is a common controlling principle. Large scale cortical potentials are believed to arise from functional integration of synaptic current sources on the surface of neurons. These microsources related to individual synaptic actions are components of potentials described as mesosources forming intermediate scale dipole moments. The potentials everywhere in the vicinity of the cortex are expressed as the sums of contributions from all mesosources.
Association of electron translocation with the synaptic reaction
Masses of electrons translocated through the mechanism described above and reaching the surface of the brain obviously influence the local micro- and mesosources generated by the masses of neurons. Only a remaining small percentage of electrons which are able to translocate to the surface of the cortex decoheres around where the intercellular gap widens into the subdural space on the surface of the brain. It is the rest of those electrons which leave the source and decohere elsewhere. The opening of the intercellular gaps is, according to the Schroedinger equation, area of an increased number of decohering quanta. The others decohere in lower parts of the tissue. The synaptic activity is modulated by the translocated electrons. Excitatory postsynaptic potentials become more negative, inhibitory postsynaptic potentials become less positive. That affects the excitability of the neurons up to the point of reaching the firing level. The amplitude of the dipole moment is presumably altered as well.
These comments explain how the whole brain is controlled by a common electron field formed by translocated electrons. The amplitude indicates how much electrical activity of a similar type is going on beneath the recording electrodes. This field interacts, affects and is affected by local synaptic actions and local dipoles. The continuum of EEG across large areas of the hemispheres is accomplished by this mechanism. Long and short interactions dominate local and global dynamic processes in the cortex. This may facilitate interactions between remote cell assemblies, providing an important mechanism for the functional integration underlying conscious experience. It seems obvious that shorter waves of the EEG originate in shorter reverberating circuits or smaller neuronal assemblies. The wave frequency indicates how often the wave cycles from its maximal amplitude to its minimal amplitude and back. From the wavelength we may estimate a size of the utilized neuronal assemblies with their reverberation circuits. The size of the neuronal assembly correlates therefore conversely with the frequency of the waves of the EEG.
The brainstem potentials
In order to estimate the neural sources of scalp potentials and electric fields, one has to solve the associated forward problem. The forward problem maps sources of the EEG potentials, their location, strength, and orientation. An example of this are the brainstem auditory evoked potentials generated by short clicks administered to the ear. The first wave, wave 1, is formed by discharges of the distal part of the cochlear nerve formed by about 40,000 nerve fibers. Not all of them fire at once, as shown during the averaging of the repeated responses. The averaged curve of the wave 1. resembles, most of all, the normal distribution curve. During the first fifteen milliseconds, a number of waves may be recorded from the surface of the cortex. The wave 1. appears during first millisecond after the stimulus. The impulses passing through the anatomically defined auditory pathway in the brain stem and inducing the cortical evoked potential reach the cortex gradually and later. This is evidence that the waves recorded from the surface of the cortex may have an origin deep in the brain and do not depend on neuronal connections between the source and area of recording. We have to answer the following question: How are the brainstem auditory potentials then transferred into the cortex without passing through the auditory pathway first? A hypothesis which we propose here may explain that.
Discussion
The presented hypothesis may explain a number of phenomena. In the first place, the hypothesis indicates that the generation of mind and consciousness is based on a combination of quantum mechanisms, such as translocation of electrons, with neuronal activity. The solution of the hard problem of consciousness also depends on elementary characteristics of the submicroscopic particles within the brain, in particular on the Pauli force which may be a carrier of the subjectivity of consciousness.
The same mechanism probably plays role in the binding problem of the consciousness as well. According to Braitenberg and Schitz (1998), all neurons in the cerebral cortex are morphologically interconnected through two or three synapses. Therefore, according to them, the cerebral cortex is a purely statistical ensemble of axons, dendrites and synapses. That obviously requires a mechanism organizing these ensembles. Braitenberg and Schitz themselves admit that their scheme which utilizes direct connections between all the neurons of the cortex, as some models of an “associative matrix” kind have, is functionally out of question. One single synapse has a minimal role in the activation of a neuron. For this reason, we cannot expect that stimulation of one neuron will activate all the neurons in the cortex.
The brain does not function as a randomly assembled system. The diffuse and apparently haphazard arrangement of synaptic boutons along the branches of the axonal tree suggests a distribution of signals to large sets of other neurons. As a consequence of this, the condition for a cortical neuron to be activated must be a synchronous activity of many of its afferents.
Therefore, it is possible that the quantum connection of many neurons plays a major role in functioning of the brain. Among other things, there is an enormous amount of structural connections in the cortex. If every synapse were to be interpreted as a component in a strictly defined wiring diagram, is difficult to imagine how this system could work on its own. It has to be controlled somehow. We propose that this is a real purpose of the human mind, a homunculus, self, ego or superego, as this mechanism is called by various terminologies. And the mind, ego, etc. depends on ultramicroscopic particles.
Therefore, any portion of the cortex may be informed about the activity in the rest of the cortex not only through direct fibre connections or by way of a few synapses, but also by our proposed quantum mechanism.
Associated with the explanation of mind and consciousness is the explanation of the electroencephalogram. The original promise of EEG to form a window to cognition may be resolved. EEG consistently varies with different states of alertness. There is a close correlation of the alertness and EEG.
There are some EEG mechanisms which cannot function without this quantum hypothesis. Thus, for instance, this hypothesis explains why the first wave of the brainstem acoustic evoked response appears in the cortex within one millisecond, almost simultaneously with the firing of the distal part of the acoustic nerve, avoiding the regular acoustic pathway.
Also, the quantum mechanism may explain why a major part of the hemishere may show a coherence of EEG rhythms, And, it may explain the local/global neocortical dynamics.
The summed electrical charges of the classical electrons after decoherence form the electroencephalogram, together with the local postsynaptic potentials. This may explain why the waves of the electroencephalogram differ from individual action potentials and synaptic potentials. If we imagine a nerve fiber or a chain of axons running parallel to the brain surface, then the particles that are translocated from it during the passage of the nerve impulse are successively decohered on the surface of brain. In terms of electrical potential, they contribute to the shape of the potential wave although they are not generated simultaneously. The source of the waves may be quite remote from the site of recording.
A more complex problem is the arrangement of this process so that it generates waves of a certain type, gamma, beta, alpha, etc. This is probably related to the function of reverberating circuits in the cortex or elsewhere. The role of reverberating circuits in the generation of the electroencephalogram was proposed previously by Adrian in 1941.
Intracortical neurons, as well as neurons in the thalamus and elsewhere, form reverberating circuits whose structure may be more or less complicated. The nerve impulses circulate in them. The nerve impulses within the reverberating circuit may pass through one or more parallel paths. They may be a component of the neuronal assemblies.
The duration of the circulation of nerve impulses in the reverberating circuits may be up to one second or more. The reverberating circuits produce a wave of translocated particles which follow each other very closely. They then gradually produce a wave of the electroencephalogram on the brain surface. The duration of a EEG wave obviously depends on the length of the reverberating circuit. Such circuits may be located in the cortex, thalamus or elsewhere (Steriade and Amzica, 1994). The increment and decrement of the wave then may depend on the augmenting and recruiting response within the circuit and on statistical probability and uncertainty. Such circuits underlie the brain rhythms (Gray and McCormick 1996).
The Fourier analysis of the electroencephalogram often reveals the presence of several rhythms recorded simultaneously. All this indicates that the reverberating circuits of several lengths may also function and be detected simultaneously.
For all these reasons, the EEG indicated how the human mind controls the neuronal actions throughout the brain. The EEG is indicator of inner processes in the brain controlled by the mind or identical with the mind.
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Tags: brain, neuron, quantum, Stanislav Reinish, Waterloo