Matthew Fisher (KITP Santa Barbara)

Date: Thu. April 4th, 2019, 4:00 pm-5:00 pm
Location: Rockefeller 301

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. Remarkably, a specific neural qubit
and a unique collection of ions, molecules and enzymes can be identified, illuminating an apparently
single path towards quantum processing in the brain.