Quantum Entanglement in the Brain could explain Memory

[A Dark Philosopher]

Subatomic particles do it. Now the observation that groups of brain cells seem to have their own version of quantum entanglement, or "spooky action at a distance", could help explain how our minds combine experiences from many different senses into one memory.

Previous experiments have shown that the electrical activity of neurons in separate parts of the brain can oscillate simultaneously at the same frequency – a process known as phase locking. The frequency seems to be a signature that marks out neurons working on the same task, allowing them to identify each other.

Dietmar Plenz and Tara Thiagarajan at the National Institute of Mental Health in Bethesda, Maryland, wondered whether more complicated signatures also link groups of neurons. To investigate, they analysed neuronal activity using arrays of electrodes implanted in the brains of two awake macaque monkeys and embedded in dish-grown neuron cultures.

In both cases, the researchers noticed that the voltage of the electrical signal in groups of neurons separated by up to 10 millimetres sometimes rose and fell with exactly the same rhythm. These patterns of activity, dubbed "coherence potentials", often started in one set of neurons, only to be mimicked or "cloned" by others milliseconds later. They were also much more complicated than the simple phase-locked oscillations and always matched each other in amplitude as well as in frequency.

"The precision with which these new sites pick up on the activity of the initiating group is quite astounding – they are perfect clones," says Plenz.

Importantly, cloned signals only appeared after one region had reached a threshold level of activity. Plenz likens this to the "tipping point" in human societies when a trend becomes adopted by large numbers of people. This threshold might ensure that our attention is only captured by significant stimuli rather than by every single signal.

Since the coherence potentials seemed unique, each one could represent a different memory Plenz suggests. Their purpose may be to trigger activity in the various parts of the brain that store aspects of the same experience. So a smell or taste, say might trigger a coherence potential that then activates the same potential in neurons in the visual part of the brain.

Karl Friston at University College London calls the discovery "a missing piece of the jigsaw puzzle" in terms of brain message transmission.

Journal reference: http://www.plosbiology.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pbio.1000278
New Scientist reference: David Robson article: http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn18371-brain-entanglement-could-explain-memories.html

[Anthony Peake]

Karl,

Thanks for posting this. Clearly as we develop the related concepts of ITLAD/CTF and CtCw such discoveries about the brain will be central in a new way of understanding exactly how the brain functions. It is information such as this that paradigm-changes are born.

I recall many years ago reaeding about the work of Karl Lashley. Lashlaey tried in vain to find the location of memoroes within the brain. As I recall he came to the conclusion that memories are either stored everywhere within the cortex or nowhere. Karl Pribram then came along with his holographic theory which suggested that memories are encoded in the same way as information is stored within a hologram.

This latest development suggests something very similar using entanglement. Very interesting!

Tony

[A Dark Philosopher]

You're very welcome Tony. As you will recall, back in 2008 I began to compose my CtCw through several BLOG posts including "The 'Sensation' Of Being Stared At". In this post, and subsequent others, I discussed my quantum entanglement of consciousness ideas and have always thought that the brain, and especially memory, function in the same way, much like a computer holds data throughout its hard drive rather than in one cohesive chunk.

This article here, amongst others and books on the subject published in the last couple of years, seems very much to support my thinking on the Neurology of Memory.

Now, imagine that the brain here is the whole of consciousness, and that each individual Neuron is a person, seemingly independent of others but intrinsically and quantumly entangled. What is mirrored in the neurology of the memory of a subjective consciousness is thus reflected in the records of the memory of objective and universal consciousness. All the neurons are quantumly entangled to create the subjective experience of memory and consciousness and in CtCw all the subjective consciousnesses are themselves quantumly entangled to create the one consciousness. Nice!

[strawberryfields]

No sure where to post this item about memory - taken from a photocopied article in Noetic Sciences of Autumn 1990. In a book by David B. Chamberlain called Babies Remember Birth (1988) the book states that conscious birth memories are to be found in children of 2-3 years of age. The author has gathered numerous examples of this type of memory.
Furthermore the author also says that in hypnotherapy womb memories are nearly as common as birth memories. The author's client, Loretta, remembers an incident that happened during the third trimester in her mothers pregnancy and was validated by her mother when the story was retold under hypnosis.
Another hypnotherapist, Josephine Van Husen has written about the memories of 48 survivors of abortion attempts who recalled stories of their mother's attempt to abort them.
(Now it gets interesting)...Chamberlain also noted that some of his clients had remembered events concerning their conception. For example he states: "Ingrid remembereed her mother and father making love on a couch in Germany before they were married...Mother was besides herself. She knew she got pregnant. She was ashamed...". In another incident client Ida revealed that there was trouble with her conception: "Mother wasn't right then, mother was not in the condition for me to come in....it was a bad time." Ida said she did not take up residence in her mother for three weeks and spent the interim floating in a comfortable place hard to describe and hard to leave. There were special swirls of light that felt good. "Its real peaceful" said Ida, "I wish I could share it with you. It makes you want to cry because it feels so good".

If this really is a memory of pre-conception does it show that the brain is not a necessary part of memory? And doesn't the feeling Ida had seem a little like the feeling of those experiencing out of body or the exquisite sensations felt during NDE's?

[Anthony Peake]

At the end of ITLAD I discuss the idea of pre-birth memories and I also mention that it is claimed that babies are born in a neurological state similar to that of a TLE "seizure". As we seem to die within a TLE state and are born within a TLE state then suddenly TLE writer Jules Goncourt's statement that life is a "nothing between two seizures" suddenly makes a lot of sense.

Indeed I myself remember my "birth" ...... or at least I remember remembering in that when I was very young I described to my mother that I had a weird memory of being in a warm place then a sudden light and noise appearing. All this chaos scared me a lot. I then recalled a pain in my arm.

What happened was that late in her pregnancy my mother developed toxemia. She was seriously ill and they had to get me out pretty darn quick. This was five weeks before I was due so my father was told it was likely that both of us would die (this was, after all, 1954). In the surgeon's urgency to get me out quick (I was not the priority!) he yanked me out by my left arm and broke it! Fortunately all 4 lbs of me did survive this traumatic introduction to this world (as did my mother). Was this what my infant mind recalled all those years ago?

Now the problem with my "memory" of this event is that neurologically my brain would not have been developed enough to process such memories. So was this actually a memory or just a confabulation created by the fact that my mother used to talk a lot to her friends about the circumstances of my birth. I clearly would have known this story when I was young. Had the hearing of the incident morphed into a "false-memory" of the event?

[strawberryfields]

I clearly would have known this story when I was young. Had the hearing of the incident morphed into a "false-memory" of the event?

This is possible and may account for the fact that some people 'fill in the blanks' in the story, especially if certain events have been told and re-told to the child. A story and 'memory' can be built upon those accounts.
However a personal experience by Australian psychiatrist Graham Farrant (1986) may alter our thinking. His had recall of his mother's attempt to abort him. He telephoned his mother and asked about it. She denied it but after he described to her how she had "taken a bunch of pills and gotten into a hot tub, she broke into tears and said, "You couldn't know this; I never told anybody" ". Farrant called these deeply ingrained memories "cellular memories".

If the unborn's brains are not fully developed - or if we are to believe the cases of those who remember their conception and even before conception - where does the memory reside?