Physics & QBio Special Seminar: Matthew P.A. Fisher, University of California, Santa Barbara, “Quantum Processing in the Brain?”

Building a laboratory quantum computer is now a billion dollar enterprise. But might we, ourselves, be quantum computers? While maintaining quantum coherence on macroscopic time scales is exceedingly unlikely in the warm wet brain, there is one exception: Nuclear spins. My strategy is one of reverse engineering, seeking to identify the biochemical substrate and mechanisms that could host such putative nuclear spin quantum processing. Seemingly, a specic neural qubit and a unique collection of ions, molecules and organelles can be identied, illuminating an apparently single path towards possible quantum processing in the brain.
Host: Ben Machta (benjamin.machta@yale.edu)