[projektfu]

I do have methodological issues with the study, but that's not the issue at hand, I guess. It is that the study does nothing to support a microtubule/quantum theory of consciousness, because there is no reason why boring cell biology stuff (vesicle transport on tubules, electrical conductivity, etc.) couldn't explain anything here. The paper doesn't present any mechanism or theory. So it's irresponsible to say that it "supports" anything other than a possible effect of a drug known to stabilize microtubules interfering with gas anesthesia.

Methodologically, it is curious that the 2 rats that got 2 doses of epoB during the study had no effect and the 6 rats that had 1 dose had effects varying from not much to a lot, but not every time. No control rats per se, it was self-controlled, by testing them for a period of time before the first or only dose.

Often I think about the subtext when I read a paper. Where is the benchtop research before going to animal model? Why this choice of rat and not inbred mice, for example? Why have 4 pairs F, G, H, and I but only 1 pair (I1 and I2) have any difference mentioned in the methods section and then they don't talk about the surprising result for I1 and I2 in their results section? Why do they have a chart that shows each individual test but they don't connect the dots to show you which rat is which? It's really not a great paper.