A Self-Operating Time Crystal Model of the Human Brain: Can We Replace Entire Brain Hardware with a 3D Fractal Architecture of Clocks Alone?

Polaritonic and excitonic semiclassical time crystals based on TMDC strips in an external periodic potential

We investigated the dynamics of Bose-Einstein condensates (BECs) under an external periodic potential. We consider two such systems, the first being made of exciton-polaritons in a nanoribbon of transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDCs), such as MoSe[Formula: see text], embedded in a microcavity with a spatial curvature, which serves as the source of the external periodic potential. The second, made of bare excitons in a nanoribbon of twisted TMDC bilayer, which naturally creates a periodic Moiré potential that can be controlled by the twist angle. We proved that such systems behave as semiclassical time crystals (TCs). This was demonstrated by the fact that the calculated BEC spatial density profile shows a non-trivial long-range two-point correlator that oscillates in time. These BECs density profiles were calculated by solving the quantum Lindblad master equations for the density matrix within the mean-field approximation. We then go beyond the usual mean-field approach by adding a stochastic term to the master equation which corresponds to quantum corrections. We show that the TC phase is still present.

A Third Angular Momentum of Photons

Photons that acquire orbital angular momentum move in a helical path and are observed as a light ring. During helical motion, if a force is applied perpendicular to the direction of motion, an additional radial angular momentum is introduced, and alternate dark spots appear on the light ring. Here, a third, centrifugal angular momentum has been added by twisting the helical path further according to the three-step hierarchical assembly of helical organic nanowires. Attaining a third angular momentum is the theoretical limit for a photon. The additional angular momentum converts the dimensionless photon to a hollow spherical photon condensate with interactive dark regions. A stream of these photon condensates can interfere like a wave or disintegrate like matter, similar to the behavior of electrons.

The century-old picture of a nerve spike is wrong: filaments fire, before membrane

In 1907, Lapicque proposed that an electric field passes through the neuronal membrane and transmits a signal. Subsequently, a “snake curve” or spike was used to depict the means by which a linear flat current undergoes a sudden Gaussian or Laplacian peak. This concept has been the accepted scenario for more than 115 years even appearing in textbooks on the subject. It was not noted that the membrane spike should have a cylindrical shape. A nerve spike having a dot shape on membrane surface cannot propagate through a cylindrical surface since it would dissipate instantaneously. A nerve spike should have the appearance of a ring, encompassing the diameter of a cylindrical axon or dendron. However, this subtle change has remarkable implications. Maintaining a circular form of an electric field is not easy, especially at the surface of an organic object. Here, we suggest that neuroscience could redefine itself if we accept that a nerve spike is not a localized 3D Gaussian or Laplacian wave packet, rather it is a 3D ring encompassing the diameter of a neural branch.

Space and Time Crystal Engineering in Developing Futuristic Chemical Technology

In the coming years, multipurpose catalysts for delivering different products under the same chemical condition will be required for developing smart devices for industrial or household use. In order to design such multipurpose devices with two or more specific roles, we need to incorporate a few independent but externally controllable catalytically active centers. Through space crystal engineering, such an externally controllable multipurpose MOF-based photocatalyst could be designed. In a chemical system, a few mutually independent secondary reaction cycles nested within the principal reaction cycle can be activated externally to yield different competitive products. Each reaction cycle can be converted into a time crystal, where the time consuming each reaction step could be converted as an event and all the reaction steps or events could be connected by a circle to build a time crystal. For fractal reaction cycles, a time polycrystal can be generated. By activating a certain fractal event based nested time crystal branch, we can select one of the desired competitive products according to our needs. This viewpoint intends to bring together the ideas of (spatial) crystal engineering and time crystal engineering in order to make use of the time–space arrangement in reaction–catalysis systems and introduce new aspects to futuristic chemical engineering technology.

Cytoskeletal Filaments Deep Inside a Neuron Are not Silent: They Regulate the Precise Timing of Nerve Spikes Using a Pair of Vortices

Hodgkin and Huxley showed that even if the filaments are dissolved, a neuron’s membrane alone can generate and transmit the nerve spike. Regulating the time gap between spikes is the brain’s cognitive key. However, the time modula-tion mechanism is still a mystery. By inserting a coaxial probe deep inside a neuron, we have re-peatedly shown that the filaments transmit electromagnetic signals ~200 μs before an ionic nerve spike sets in. To understand its origin, here, we mapped the electromagnetic vortex produced by a filamentary bundle deep inside a neuron, regulating the nerve spike’s electrical-ionic vortex. We used monochromatic polarized light to measure the transmitted signals beating from the internal components of a cultured neuron. A nerve spike is a 3D ring of the electric field encompassing the perimeter of a neural branch. Several such vortices flow sequentially to keep precise timing for the brain’s cognition. The filaments hold millisecond order time gaps between membrane spikes with microsecond order signaling of electromagnetic vortices. Dielectric resonance images revealed that ordered filaments inside neural branches instruct the ordered grid-like network of actin–beta-spectrin just below the membrane. That layer builds a pair of electric field vortices, which coherently activates all ion-channels in a circular area of the membrane lipid bilayer when a nerve spike propagates. When biomaterials vibrate resonantly with microwave and radio-wave, simultaneous quantum optics capture ultra-fast events in a non-demolition mode, revealing multiple correlated time-domain operations beyond the Hodgkin–Huxley paradigm. Neuron holograms pave the way to understanding the filamentary circuits of a neural network in addition to membrane circuits.

Electrophysiology using coaxial atom probe array: live imaging reveals hidden circuits of a hippocampal neural network

Since the 1960s, it is held that when a neuron fires, a nerve spike passes only through the selective branches, the calculated choice is a key to learning by rewiring. It is argued by chemically estimating the membrane's ion channel density that different axonal branches get active to pass the spike-branches blink at firing at different time domains. Here, using a new time-lapse dielectric imaging, we visualize the classic branch selection process; thenceforth, hidden circuits operating at different time domains become visible. The fractal grid of coaxial probes captures wireless snapshots of material's vibration at various depths below the membrane by setting a suitable frequency. Thus far, branch selection observed emitted energy or particle but never the emitters, what they do. As each dielectric material transmits and reflects signals of different frequencies, we image live how filaments search for many branch-made circuits, choose a unique pathway 10³ times faster than a single nerve spike. It reveals that neural branches and circuit visible in a microscope are not absolute, there coexist many circuits each operating in different dime domains, operating at a time.NEW & NOTEWORTHY Using dielectric resonance scanner, we show electromagnetic field connections between physically separated neurons. Electromagnetic field creates field lines that pass through gap junctions, connect Axon initial segment with the dendrites through Soma, and connect axonal or dendritic branches even if there is no synaptic junction. Consequently, many distinct loops connecting various branches form coexisting circuits. Our discovery suggests that physically appearing neural circuit is a fractional view of many simultaneously operating circuits in different time domains in a neural network.