dChan - Q Origins Project Archive

>>16495663

==Radical triads, not pairs, may explain

effects of hypomagnetic fields on neurogenesis==

in other words, why humans are losing their minds or 'balance' in concert with the sun and the earth.

Radical triads, not pairs, may explain

effects of hypomagnetic fields on neurogenesis

Jess Ramsay and Daniel R. Kattnig∗

Living Systems Institute and Department of Physics,

University of Exeter, Stocker Road, Exeter,

Devon, EX4 4QD, United Kingdom

(Dated: June 17, 2022

Adult hippocampal neurogenesis and hippocampus-dependent cognition in mice have been

found to be adversely affected by hypomagnetic field exposure. The effect concurred with

a reduction of reactive oxygen species in the absence of the geomagnetic field. A recent

theoretic study suggests a mechanistic interpretation of this phenomenon in the framework

of the Radical Pair Mechanism. According to this model, a flavin-superoxide radical pair,

born in the singlet spin configuration, undergoes magnetic field-dependent spin dynamics

such that the pair’s recombination is enhanced as the applied magnetic field is reduced.

This model has two ostensible weaknesses: a) the assumption of a singlet initial state is

irreconcilable with known reaction pathways generating such radical pairs, and b) the model

neglects the swift spin relaxation of free superoxide, which abolishes any magnetic sensitivity

in geomagnetic/hypomagnetic fields. We here suggest that a model based on a radical triad

and the assumption of a secondary radical scavenging reaction can, in principle, explain

the phenomenon without unnatural assumptions, thus providing a coherent explanation of hypomagnetic field effects in biology.

____

V. CONCLUSIONS

Zhang et al. demonstrated that hippocampal neurogenesis and hippocampus-dependent cognition adversely respond to hypomagnetic field exposure [2]. Rishabh et al. have

interpreted this remarkable finding in terms of the recombination of a radical pair comprising flavin semiquinone and superoxide [4], the putative magnetosensitivity of which

is supposed to be rooted in spin dynamics of electron and nuclear spins in the radical

pair as described by the RPM. We here build on this bold suggestion, which we extend

to a three radical model by including an additional scavenger radical, assumed to be

the ascorbyl radical. This offers two conceptual advantages: resilience of the effect to

fast spin relaxation in the superoxide radical and consistency with radical generation

by oxidation with molecular oxygen or random encounters, both of which challenge the

practical viability of the previously suggested RPM-based model. The extended model

confirms the possibility that the described hypomagnetic field effects on neurogenesis and

cognition are actually based on spin dynamics in radical systems, as first predicted by

the Simon group [4]. This suggests that the redox homeostasis could be linked to the geomagnetic field via the magneto sensitivity of ROS-generating processes in competition

with radical scavenging. This possibility raises the exciting prospect of manipulating

neuronal processes by applied static and oscillatory fields via direct modulation of ROS

levels. This could be relevant for space travel but also in the context of many neurodegenerative diseases, which are frequently accompanied by redox imbalances, leading to increased ROS levels [23]. Eventually, if the model is found true, redox homeostasis could be regarded as an indirect/coincidental quantum effect in biology.