New research on anesthesia unlocks important clues about the nature of consciousness
New research on anesthesia unlocks important clues about the nature of consciousness
New research on anesthesia has yielded important results about the physical basis of consciousness in the brain.
The authors show that stabilizing the microtubules network with epothilone B delays the onset of unconsciousness in rats under isoflurane anesthesia by one minute.
This suggests that a normal microtubules network is required for normal neuronal function. This is expected, considering the microtubules network is essential for cell shape and intercellular transport, among other things.
Taking this as evidence or even concluding that quantum microtubules vibrations are responsible for consciousness is a very big stretch.
I'm also unclear why this would be specific to neurons or higher animals for that matter. Virtually every eukaryotic cells has microtubules.
tl;dr: me no likey.