The Quantum Brain: The Untold Story of Docosahexaenoic Acid’s Role in Brain Evolution, Biophysics, and Cognition
Michael A. Crawford, Lawrence A. Horn, Thomas Brenna, Catherine Leigh Broadhurst, Simon C. Dyall, Mark Johnson, Walter F. Schmidt, Andrew J. Sinclair, Manahel Thabet, Yiqun Wang · 2025
Read The Quantum Brain: The Untold Story of Docosahexaenoic Acid’s Role in Brain Evolution, Biophysics, and Cognition by Michael A. Crawford, Lawrence A. Horn, Thomas Brenna, Catherine Leigh Broadhurst, Simon C. Dyall, Mark Johnson, Walter F. Schmidt, Andrew J. Sinclair, Manahel Thabet, Yiqun Wang (2025) in the Tower of Babel, a free online library of public-domain works preserved in clean, searchable text. No sign-up. The full text is served as a plain-text file at a predictable URL, where text is present: https://antarctic-labs.com/tower-of-babel/pmc-12691854.txt.
Description
Docosahexaenoic acid, or DHA, is the main fatty acid in the eye's light sensors, in neurons, and at the junctions between them. Textbooks treat it as a passive building block of cell membranes. Michael Crawford and co-authors argue for a far more active role. They propose that DHA's chain of double bonds forms an electron-rich setting where proteins couple into quantum clouds. That coupling enables the fast signaling behind recognition, recall, and thought.
Drawing on molecular evolution, biophysics, and brain science, they cast DHA as the original light-sensitive molecule, the chromophore from which the nervous system grew. On their view, cognition rests not on proteins alone but on electron movements where membranes meet proteins. They present DHA as a conserved driver of brain evolution that still supplies the physical base for thinking. The piece is a perspective, offering a reframing to test rather than new experimental results.
Catalog record
| CREATOR | Michael A. Crawford, Lawrence A. Horn, Thomas Brenna, Catherine Leigh Broadhurst, Simon C. Dyall, Mark Johnson, Walter F. Schmidt, Andrew J. Sinclair, Manahel Thabet, Yiqun Wang |
|---|---|
| YEAR | 2025 |
| COLLECTION | PAPERS |
| FORMAT | TXT |
| FILE SIZE | 38 KB |
| VERSION | 1.0 |
| LICENSE | CC BY 4.0 |
| RIGHTS | CC BY |
| SOURCE | Europe PMC |