Tan Xiaoxuan, Gao Mingxin, Chang Chao
Innovation Laboratory of Terahertz Biophysics, National Innovation Institute of Defense Technology, Beijing 100071, China.
Astronaut Center of China, Beijing 100084, China.
iScience. 2023 Jan 14;26(2):105979. doi: 10.1016/j.isci.2023.105979. eCollection 2023 Feb 17.
Continuous and efficient energy capture represents a long-sought dream of mankind. The brain is a major energy-consuming organ; an adult brain accounts for about 2% of the body weight but consumes about 20% of the body's energy. However, it is still unclear how the brain achieves efficient use of energy. Here, using nerve cells as test subjects, we found that THz photons with a specific frequency can effectively restore the reduced frequency of action potentials caused by inadequate ATP supply, which has been demonstrated as a novel mode of energy supply, present photons emission at a particular frequency from the breaking of the ATP phosphate bond. This energy supply mechanism may play a key biophysical basis for explaining how the body efficiently obtains energy, because the quantized chemical reactions could have a high energy efficiency and ultrahigh selectivity compared with the traditional thermochemistry and photochemistry.
持续且高效的能量捕获是人类长期以来追求的梦想。大脑是主要的耗能器官；成人大脑约占体重的2%，却消耗约20%的身体能量。然而，大脑如何实现能量的高效利用仍不清楚。在此，我们以神经细胞为测试对象，发现特定频率的太赫兹光子能够有效恢复因ATP供应不足而降低的动作电位频率，这已被证明是一种新的能量供应模式，即ATP磷酸键断裂时会以特定频率发射光子。这种能量供应机制可能为解释身体如何高效获取能量提供关键的生物物理基础，因为与传统热化学和光化学相比，量子化化学反应可能具有高能量效率和超高选择性。
