Quantum leap for telepathy

14.04.38: BRAIN SCIENTISTS have scoffed at the idea of telepathic powers, but new findings from an American study could change their minds.

Investigators at Research Triangle Park, North Carolina, have found that parts of the brain obey quantum laws of behaviour.

'Quantum theory is about what happens at the subatomic level,' says Stuart Hameroff, professor of quantum consciousness at Arizona University, 'and different laws apply. You get action at a distance. Change one particle of a pair that have been together and the other changes, even though there is no connection between the two. This process could be the basis for telepathy.'

The research was aimed at proving the theory that human consciousness emerges from quantum activity in the tiny microtubules that make up the skeleton of individual brain cells.

Scientists explored the effects of anaesthetic gas on the brains of mice, and found that one of the parts of the microtubules, tubulin, behaved like the 'qubit' used in quantum computing.

But sceptics were cautious. 'This doesn't prove anything about human consciousness,' said Professor David Chalmers of the University of California, San Diego. JB