(*) Summary.

The debates about the trivial and non-trivial effects in biological systems have drawn much attention during the last decade or so.  What might these non-trivial sorts of quantum effects be?  There is no consensus so far among the physicists and biologists regarding the meaning of “non-trivial quantum effects”. However, there is no doubt about the implications of the challenging research into quantum effects relevant to biology such as coherent excitations of  biomolecules and photosynthesis,  quantum tunneling of protons, van der Waals forces, ultrafast dynamics through conical intersections , and phonon-assisted electron tunneling as the basis for our sense of smell , environment assisted transport of ions and entanglement in ion channels, role of quantum vacuum in consciousness. Several authors discussed the non-trivial quantum effects and classified them into four broad categories: (a) Quantum life principle; (b) Quantum computing in the brain; (c) Quantum computing in genetics; and (d) Quantum consciousness.

        At first I will make a review of the above developments and then will discuss in details the ion transport in the ion channel and the relevance of quantum theory in brain function. The ion transport in the ion channel plays key role in information processing of brain.

 

(**) Biodata.

Professor Sisir Roy is currently working on quantum tunneling for dissipative quantum systems. Its implications at nano-scale as well as for biological systems are under investigations by his group. He is working on the relevance of quantum theory for biological systems especially in understanding the dynamics of ion channels in brain. Ion channels play a very important role in information processing in brain. Recently, the empirical evidences indicate the inadequacy of classical Bayesian approach to decision making and modeling in cognitive domain. The concept of quantum probability is found to play an important role in explaining these evidences and gives rise to new direction in modeling cognitive domain.

Prof. Roy is working on the cellular basis of cognition with an international group of neuro-scientists and mathematicians. The framework of probabilistic dynamic geometry and the issue of computability in brain function is another area of this collaborative research.