Thangamani Arunvel, Arumuganainar Deepavalli
Interdisciplinary, Indian Institute of Technology Madras, Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India.
Periodontics, Saveetha Institute of Medical and Technical Sciences, Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India.
Commun Integr Biol. 2024 Jul 10;17(1):2373301. doi: 10.1080/19420889.2024.2373301. eCollection 2024.
As every life form is composed of cells, elements of consciousness, namely memory and sentience, must be grounded in mechanisms that are integral to unicellular organisms. Earlier studies indicated that cellular cytoskeletal structures consisting of excitable, flexible, and oscillating polymers such as microtubules, along with quantum events, are potentially responsible for information processing and thus consciousness. This work attempts to solve the unknown, that is, how, at the spark of life, the phenomenon of cellular information processing first appears. This study posits that the spatially distributed wave energy of the molecules of an incepting cell interacts with space and generates a rotating bioinformation field, forming a vortex. This vortex, the local energy maximum, whose inbound and outbound energy fluxes represent signal reception and dispersal, is a critical step in the spark of life responsible for information storage, and with incremental wave superpositions, exhibits information processing. The vorticity of the rotating field is computed, and the obtained field characteristics indicated the emergence of a prebiotic complex to initiate information processing. Furthermore, the developed system model explains how perturbations from the environment are converted into response signals for the emanation of sense, locomotion, nutrition, and asexual reproduction, the fundamental evolutionary building blocks of prokaryotes. Further research directions include explaining how the energy potential available in the bio-information field and the vortex leads to the first formation of genetic material, emergence of cytoskeleton, and extension of bio-information field to multi-cellular organisms.
由于每一种生命形式都是由细胞组成的，意识的要素，即记忆和感知，必然基于单细胞生物所不可或缺的机制。早期研究表明，由可兴奋、灵活且振荡的聚合物（如微管）组成的细胞细胞骨架结构，连同量子事件，可能负责信息处理，进而负责意识。这项工作试图解决一个未知问题，即在生命诞生之初，细胞信息处理现象是如何首次出现的。本研究假定，起始细胞分子的空间分布波能与空间相互作用并产生一个旋转的生物信息场，形成一个漩涡。这个漩涡，即局部能量最大值，其入能流和出能流分别代表信号接收和扩散，是生命诞生过程中负责信息存储的关键一步，并且随着波的叠加增加，展现出信息处理能力。计算了旋转场的涡度，所获得的场特征表明出现了一种启动信息处理的益生元复合体。此外，所建立的系统模型解释了来自环境的扰动如何转化为用于发出感知、运动、营养和无性繁殖（原核生物的基本进化组成部分）的响应信号。进一步的研究方向包括解释生物信息场和漩涡中可用的能量势如何导致遗传物质的首次形成、细胞骨架的出现以及生物信息场向多细胞生物的扩展。
