Do quantum effects play a role in consciousness? – Physics World

The role of biophotons in the brain is a growing area of research in neurobiology – and where there are photons there might be quantum mechanics. The light of the mind is blue, wrote the poet Sylvia Plath ("The Moon and the Yew Tree" 1961). But it seems it may actually be red. That's because recent research suggests a link between intelligence and the frequency of biophotons in animals' brains. In 2016 Zhuo Wang and colleagues at the South-Central University for Nationalities in China studied brain slices from various animals (bullfrog, mouse, chicken, pig, monkey and human) that had been excited by glutamate, an excitatory neurotransmitter.