Neural qubits: Quantum cognition based on synaptic nuclear spins

(Phys.org)—The pursuit of an understanding of the base machinery of the mind led early researchers to anatomical exhaustion. With neuroscience now in the throes of molecular mayhem and a waning biochemical bliss, physics is spicing things up with a host of eclectic quantum, spin, and isotopic novelties. While increases in electron spin content have been linked to anesthetic effects, nuclear spins have recently been implicated in a more rarefied and subtle phenomenon— neural quantum processing.