The entwined mysteries of anesthesia and consciousness: is there a common underlying mechanism?

SR Hameroff - The Journal of the American Society of …, 2006 - pubs.asahq.org
THE mechanism by which general anesthetics prevent consciousness remains unknown
largely because the mechanism by which brain physiology produces consciousness is
unexplained. But the two mysteries seem to share a critical feature—both consciousness
and actions of anesthetic gases are mediated through extremely weak London forces (a type
of van der Waals force) acting in hydrophobic pockets within dendritic proteins arrayed in
synchronized brain systems. Unraveling this common thread may reveal not only how …