Mechanism of Universal Quantum Computation in the Brain

In this paper, the authors extend [1] and provide more details of how the brain may act like a quantum computer. In particular, positing the difference between voltages on two axons as the environment for ions undergoing spatial superposition, we argue that evolution in the presence of metric perturbations will differ from that in the absence of these waves. This differential state evolution will then encode the information being processed by the tract due to the interaction of the quantum state of the ions at the nodes with the “controlling’ potential. Upon decoherence, which is equal to a measurement, the final spatial state of the ions is decided and it also gets reset by the next impulse initiation time. Under synchronization, several tracts undergo such processes in synchrony and therefore the picture of a quantum computing circuit is complete. Under this model, based on the number of axons in the corpus callosum alone, we estimate that upwards of 50 million quantum states might be prepared and evolved every second in this white matter tract, far greater processing than any present quantum computer can accomplish.

Axonal Conduction Velocity: A Computer Study

This paper derives rigorous statements concerning the propagation velocity of action potentials in axons. The authors use the Green’s function approach to approximate the action potential and find a relation between conduction velocity and the impulse profile. Computer simulations are used to bolster the analysis.

A Study of Compound Action Potentials in Current-Coupled Tracts: the General Case

In this paper, the authors investigate compound action potentials formed when the underlying tract's axons have current-mediated coupling amongst themselves, and no field-mediated coupling. The key finding of the paper is that, for the case of biophysically inhomogeneous axon tracts, the compound action potential is governed by a Hodgkin-Huxley like equation itself in certain cases. The paper extends an earlier result for the identical axon case.

Fields, Geometry and Their Impact on Axon Interaction

In this paper, we present a simulation program that allows for the concurrent propagation of action potentials in axons coupled via currents, as well as, for the first time, the computation of the resultant nodal electric field generated as the action potentials traverse the tract of axons. With these fields in hand, we inject currents into nodes of axons that depend on these fields and study the coupling between axons in the presence of the fields and currents present jointly in varying strengths. We find close-to-synchronized propagation in three dimensions. Further, we derive for the first time a mathematical equation for tortuous tracts (as opposed to linear) with such field-mediated coupling. The geometrical formulation enables us to consider spacetime perturbative effects, which have also not been considered in the literature so far. We investigate the case when gravitational radiation is present, in order to determine its impact on tract information processing. We find that action potential relative-timing in a tract is affected by the strength and frequency of gravitational waves and the waning of this influence with weakening strength. This latter study blurs the division between what lies inside and outside man. As an additional novelty, we investigate the influence of geometry on the information transmission capacity of the ephaptically-coupled tract, when viewed as a discrete memoryless channel, and find a rising trend in capacity with increasing axonal inclinations, which may occur in traumatic CNS injury.

Differential Ephaptic Networks

Ephaptic coupling is the phenomenon where the various axons in an axon tract contribute to the evolution of the voltage variable on each axon. In this paper, we relax the central assumption of electroneutrality used by Reutskiy et al. That assumption is based on charge conservation laws. However, we present data from the literature in support of this relaxation. Thus we are able to justify the presence of negative entries in the geometric W matrix. These negative entries then impact the action potential conduction profiles of the axons in the tract. These “signed” and coupled tracts can be envisioned as bearers of neural information which is akin to that borne by a synapse.