In article <9411131124.AA03241 at phage.cshl.org>, anderson at CSHL.ORG (John Anderson
in Anderson Lab) writes:
>> I believe it was Peter Mitchell who worked out the mechanism of
>> oxidative phosphorylation. It involves a proton conductance through a
>> membrane, which overcomes the problems with the charge on the proton.
>> The reason I bring this up is that there is a problem with neural
>> spines--the spine neck is quite narrow, and does not allow ionic flow
>> between the spine and the dendrite.
>>>> However, my taking a course from Harold Morowitz on metabolism begins to
>> provide some insight here. He keeps emphasizing the importance of static
>> cell structure to how the cell operates. (He's taken metazoans down
>> nearly to absolute zero and then revived them--which you could not do if
>> persistent dynamics were necessary to life.) The problem with the spine
>> neck would go away if there were some sort of biological structure that
>> supported the necessary ion flow. I.e., ion wires through the neck...
>>>> Has anyone looked to see if microtubules supported ionic conductance?
>> That would also start to provide some insight into their role in the
>> protistan neuroskeleton. Based on structure, they might even function as
>> some sort of coaxial cable.
>>>> --
>> Harry Erwin
>> Internet: herwin at gmu.edu>>Microtubules play an important role in Roger Penrose's new book
>SHADOWS OF THE MIND (which I've not read), as a possible substrate for
>"quantum consciousness", I think. I believe the original idea came
>from Stuart Hameroff. The property of microtubules that these guys
>like is that the tubulin monomers can have one of two conformations,
>determined by the position of an particular electron. I wonder if
>this electron, or a surrogate, could be transferred along the length
>of the microtubule as part of a wave of conformational change, thus
>effectively producing a current?
>>------------------------------------------------------------------------
>John E. Anderson, Ph.D. 904-448-6286 (phone)
>9439 San Jose Boulevard #226 anderson at cshl.org (email)
>Jacksonville, Florida 32257 jander at unf6.unf.edu (email)
>Very likely. Waves in the microtublule, back propogation waves, wave
in neuron, and waves from waves equal .....?
Ron Blue
