A few months ago, I blogged about The Hydraulic Brain - an unorthodox theory which proposed that brain function is not electrical, but mechanical. On this view, neuroscientists have it all wrong, because nerve impulses are in fact physical waves of pressure that travel down neurons as if the brain were made up of billions of little water pipes. That was wacky. But I've just come across a hypothesis so bizarre, it makes the hydraulic brain look positively down to earth. Here's the paper, just published in Medical Hypotheses:Percussion circuits and brain function
According to author D. S. Robertson, neuronal firing is, well, literally firing: sensory neurons contain highly unstable explosive compounds, the detonation of which creates pressure waves that transmit neural signals:
It is proposed that percussion decomposition of peroxynitrate compounds occurs in the intracellular fluids of the sensory organ and brain cells. Peroxynitrates are highly unstable and are ...
