From owner-biophysics@net.bio.net Fri Mar 11 22:00:00 1994 Path: biosci!bcm!cs.utexas.edu!howland.reston.ans.net!noc.near.net!news.delphi.com!usenet From: GREGORY C.O'KELLY Newsgroups: bionet.biophysics Subject: Re: electromagnetism and biology Date: Fri, 11 Mar 94 23:17:23 -0500 Organization: Delphi (info@delphi.com email, 800-695-4005 voice) Lines: 90 Message-ID: References: <5k0J-nX.gokelly@delphi.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: bos1f.delphi.com X-To: GREGORY C.O'KELLY The following comments may be comprehensible only to those who have read the paper "Biology, Bioelectricity and the Nervous System." Others may understand these comments by virtue of their being well read in or familiar with associated areas. I hope to have the paper available even- tually through e-mail, but I lack the skills and resources at the moment. All are invited to read along, however. Maybe the curious will trouble to obtain the paper. The paper discussed the belief from at least the time of the 'natural- philosophers', Claude Bernard, Charles Darwin, etc., that the laws of nature applied also to living things. The paper discusses how this belief, although echoed by biology, was not honored once the 'laws of nature' advanced be- yond the first of the four fundamental forces of nature, that is to say, biology remained in the world of the Newtonian Classical Mechanic, and refused to consider the pertinence to the animate of such things as the forces of electromagnetism. Although biology trumpets its findings about the homing of migratory creatures, the healing of bone accelerated by electrical current, or leukemia rates of children raised near power lines, these are all research artifacts that remain unrelated. It was discussed in the paper how the classical mechanic sees the electron of quantum mechanics only as a small planet orbiting around an atomic nucleus; how the biochemist sees only ions and molecules and maybe the effect on them of electrical charge, but doesn't consider that electrical charge, electrons, whether wave or particle, can have an existence independent of the atom that is part of the biochemical function- ing of a cell (whether through production of energy by mitochondria or through being the 'information' that is transmitted by nerve impulse). So even the biochemist is left with mechanical metaphors, and speaks of the pursuit of mechanisms and tiny, intracellular protein factories, and cellular communication, identification, and exchange of signals that all takes place mechanically, that is, by the collision of molecules, the turning of keys in locks. Yet if one took a bucket of water and filled it with locks and keys, he would have to agitate it for thousands of years before one of those keys even inserted itself into a lock without turning. Considering the effects of polarity to be most immediately noticeable with electrolysis and electroplating, anodizing, galvanizing, one can see how important electrical charge is for all of chemistry. Electrolysis was what made possible the original isolation and discovery of many elements; the interaction between elements was what made possible the batteries of Volta which explained Galvani's 'animal electricity.' Polarity is impor- tant to the functioning of the nervous system whether as an afferent movement of positive or negative electrical charge, or as an efferent movement of negative electrical charge only. The information transmitted is not something extra to the charge, it is the electrochemical reaction triggered by that charge whether through arrival at the nerve cell itself or at the synapse of the cell's axon. In the latter case negative electrical charge triggers the secretions of acetylcholine which result in muscle contraction leading to what we know as 'behavior'. Electromagnetism is then influential at the cellular level, at the subcellular level, and at the level of the multi-synaptic organism itself. The 'laws of nature' apply to all living things at all levels; there is no special emergent mental entity or consciousness that is something above and beyond the so-called 'sum of the parts'. Attempts to understand be- havior in these terms, whether human or animal, leads to endless spec- ulation that is not testable as to the reality of the postulated 'whole'. The result is the perpetuation of such things as psychiatry which, although perhaps helpful, usually resorts to chemical means to achieve any benefit, though at temendous expense to the patient far more than the cost of the pills. If instead the functioning of the nervous system is analogized to the functioning of a trickle charger, a flow of electrochemical energy in the form of negative electricl charge that triggers post-synaptic anabolism, then such things as that acetylcholine is the active neurotransmitter across all major synaptic junctions, whether sympathetic, parasympthetic, or somatic makes sense when combined with the fact that the negative pole is cholinergic. This allows the understanding of CNS trophism as something more than the delivery of ganglion cells and vesicles of acetylcholine through flow of the axoplasm. It involves too the electrical impulses that will then act upon those chemicals electrolytically. By the same token, the stimulation at the synaptic junction with a negative charge delivered from an outside source simulates this electro- chemical functioning - as was found by the WWII experimenters discussed in the paper who called what they saw 'galvanic exercise', its result being the restoration of the bulk and function of muscle tissue. If, at the cell end of the axon, one sees the cell as a neural group composed of millions of tiny cellular capacitors, it become possible to imagine how bombarding this cell with electrical charge antidromically (using negative electrical charge) might cause the cell(s) to increase dendritic growth and delivery of substance through the axon. The plasticity of the brain, especially in birds, is well studied. Environmental as well as endocrinal and hormonal influences trigger drastic changes in the avian brain. In humans, if a child is raised in isolation without a stimulating environment and deprived of interaction with others, the child's brain remains undevelped to the point were, in the case for example of children found in the wild, the child never learns to speak. Learning shortcomings and brain pathology are symptomatic of the schizophrenic and the criminal. By restoring CNS functioning and vitality, by restoring brain and body, we may be able to aid the afferent flow of 'information' that is necssary for learning and awareness of environmental context. The hypothesized application of negative electrical charge could act to restore, in dualistic terms, mind and body. .