Aromatic patterns: Tryptophan aromaticity as a catalyst for the emergence of life and rise of consciousness.
Physics of life reviews September 1, 2022 Amal Alachkar
Tryptophan, an aromatic amino acid, sits at the center of light-harvesting active sites in proteins from cyanobacteria to higher organisms, suggesting its unique electron resonance delocalization (aromaticity) enabled early photosynthesis. This capacity may have evolved to support more complex functions, including the neural synchronization underlying consciousness. The argument posits that tryptophan's aromatic non-locality could catalyze long-range coherence in neural networks, providing a theoretical basis for defining the neural correlates of consciousness.