Abstract
The nervous system is a non-linear dynamical complex system with many feedback loops. A conventional wisdom is that in the brain the quantum fluctuations are self-averaging and thus functionally negligible. However, this intuition might be misleading in the case of non-linear complex systems. Because of an extreme sensitivity to initial conditions, in complex systems the microscopic fluctuations may be amplified and thereby affect the system’s behavior. In this way quantum dynamics might influence neuronal computations. Accumulating evidence in non-neuronal systems indicates that biological evolution is able to exploit quantum stochasticity. The recent rise of quantum biology as an emerging field at the border between quantum physics and the life sciences suggests that quantum events could play a non-trivial role also in neuronal cells. Direct experimental evidence for this is still missing but future research should address the possibility that quantum events contribute to an extremely high complexity, variability and computational power of neuronal dynamics.
Highlights
The view of the nervous system as a linear, computer-like machine performing classical, deterministic input-output or stimulus-response computations is still very popular in neuroscience
Christoph Koch and Klaus Hepp, too, identify the large size of neuronal objects and the huge number of particles involved in neuronal signaling as one of the critical weak points of quantum brain hypothesis: “ brains obey quantum mechanics, they do not seem to exploit any of its special features. Molecular machines, such as the light-amplifying components of photoreceptors, pre- and post-synaptic receptors and the voltage- and ligand-gated channel proteins that span cellular membranes and underpin neuronal excitability, are so large that they can be treated as classical objects. . . . Two key biophysical operations underlie information processing in the brain: chemical transmission across the synaptic cleft, and the generation of action potentials
Only trivial quantum effects could be present in the nervous system
Summary
The view of the nervous system as a linear, computer-like machine performing classical, deterministic input-output or stimulus-response computations is still very popular in neuroscience. This view is challenged by experimental findings and theoretical analyses indicating that the nervous system is a non-linear dynamical complex system (Deco et al, 2008; Singer, 2009; Tognoli and Scott Kelso, 2014; Wolf et al, 2014) exhibiting highly stochastic activity (Deco et al, 2009). Neuronal networks with non-linear neurons and densely connected feedback loops can generate dynamics that is more complex, variable and rich than expected (Deco and Jirsa, 2012; Singer, 2013; Singer and Lazar, 2016). A conventional wisdom is that in macroscopic objects such as our brain the quantum fluctuations are self-averaging and cannot contribute to its rich dynamics
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