The researchers added: ‘As the brain reaches a critical level of hypoxia, the [action potential, an electrical signal that shoots down a neuron] is lost by large numbers of neurons, and this loss of electrical potential causes a cascade of electrical act.’.
Hameroff said the researchers noticed a sudden flurry of brain activity in one patient, called gamma waves, believed to be involved in sleep, perception and movement.
Researchers have long documented patients experiencing lucid, lifelike hallucinations after clinical death, when the heart stops pumping but the brain flickers with electrical activity.
‘The point is it shows that consciousness is actually, probably, a very low energy process,’ Hameroff, who has been working on the controversial theory of quantum consciousness since 1996, said.
So deep, he said, that our minds could operate on a quantum level – matter and energy at its most fundamental level.
