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IF IT is a controversial idea that warm, wet life might exploit quantum magic, that鈥檚 nothing compared with certain researchers鈥� convictions that quantum phenomena might help explain human consciousness.

Orchestrated objective reduction theory (Orch OR), originally proposed by physicist Roger Penrose and anaesthesiologist Stuart Hameroff in the 1990s, seeks to bridge the gulf between physical matter and felt experience. The idea is that consciousness arises when gravitational instabilities in the fundamental structure of space-time collapse quantum wave functions in tiny proteins called microtubules, which are found inside neurons.

It is heady stuff, but if pulling together quantum mechanics, gravity and consciousness in one fell swoop sounds too good to be true, it might be. Orch OR鈥檚 that any quantum coherence inside microtubules would fall apart in the warm and noisy environs of grey matter long before it could have any effect on the workings of neurons.

Yet in one tantalising experiment last year, as-yet unpublished, Jack Tuszynski at the University of Alberta in Canada and Aristide Dogariu at the University of Central Florida found that light shone on microtubules was very slowly re-emitted over several minutes 鈥� a hallmark of quantum goings-on. 鈥淭his is crazy,鈥� says Tuszynski, who set about building a theoretical microtubule model to describe what he was seeing.

, a biochemist at Princeton University, is studying microtubules for signs of similar quantum effects. Initial experiments point to long-lived, long-range collective behaviour among molecules in the structures. Both groups plan to test whether anaesthetics, which switch consciousness on and off, have any impact on microtubules. 鈥淭here is amazing structure and synchrony in biological systems,鈥� says Scholes. 鈥淲e just need to do experiments that are quite different from anything we鈥檝e done before.鈥�

Anaesthesiologist George Mashour at the University of Michigan is in favour of such ventures. But he cautions that 鈥測ou can鈥檛 make any jump to consciousness鈥�. There are many more steps before these sorts of experiments begin to replicate the conditions inside a brain, he points out. Ultimately, says Mashour, if anaesthetics do switch off long-lived quantum states in microtubules, this would amount to a 鈥減roof of principle that would at least take Orch OR out of the realm of total fringe鈥�. There may be life in the idea of the quantum brain yet.