ATP, mitochondria, neurons and the deeper mystery of thought
We often speak about the brain as though we have already solved the mystery of thought.
Neurons fire. Networks communicate. Neurotransmitters cross synapses. And increasingly, neuroscience shows us something more fundamental: all of it requires energy.
Mitochondria convert metabolic fuel into ATP, the currency neurons need to communicate at all. Without it, signalling fails.
But does that mean that energy produces thought?
Do neurons create thought, or are they the biological medium through which thought becomes expressed?
Billions of neurons receiving, integrating and signalling, all of it metabolically expensive.
Remember your childhood and we can measure activity across memory, emotion and perception networks. Feel love, grief or hope and neuroscience finds correlates in neurotransmitters, hormones and metabolic demand.
A neuron is not, by itself, a thought. Thought emerges through extraordinarily complex interaction across neural systems, the body and the environment.
But saying that the brain produces thought hides an assumption: that once we have explained the activity, we have explained the thought. Or have we explained only the mechanism through which it becomes manifest?
In Jivan Vidya, as taught by Baba Nagraj, mind is not simply equated with brain. The concept of Vṛtti offers another route: thought arising through a movement of the mind, which then takes form within consciousness.
The same components appear in both. What separates them is which way causation runs.
Not merely a collection of electrical signals. An internal representation. And you can change it.
If neurons require ATP, then consciousness as expressed through the brain depends upon metabolism. Perhaps the hierarchy looks something like this.
Neither should be presented casually as established fact. Dependence is not proof of ultimate origin. Perhaps this is where humility is required.
Enormous scientific support in terms of the dependence of conscious experience upon brain function. But dependence is not necessarily the same as proof of ultimate origin.
Remains a philosophical and metaphysical proposition rather than an established scientific conclusion. And perhaps this is precisely where humility is required.
Neuroscience is becoming exceptionally good at answering what happens in the brain when we think. Another question remains.
Without ATP, the most sophisticated neural network becomes functionally silent. So intelligence may require at least three dimensions. And perhaps a fourth.
The architecture of the neural system
What is represented and processed
What enables the system to remain dynamically active
The field in which experience, meaning and awareness arise
The mitochondria give the neuron energy to fire. The neuron communicates. The network constructs a representation. But somewhere in that extraordinary chain, there is experience.
How does biological activity become experience?
That question remains open. And perhaps keeping it open is not a weakness of science. It is an invitation to go deeper.
Chartered Clinical Psychologist. In 1998 he established the Kamkus Clinic on Harley Street, built on his concept of multidimensional healthcare, and developed the Body Mind Energy Assessment and Vedic Psychotherapy. He is a Chartered Member and Associate Fellow of the British Psychological Society, and has been featured on BBC TV, in the Evening Standard, The Times and the Daily Mail.
Read the full profile →Dr Diwakar Sukul runs a clinical psychology clinic once a week at Omnia, offering mental health services in: