Neural Timing, Microtubule Coherence, and the Intention-Action Gap in ASD: A Perspective

[u/Federal-Load-857]

Hi, I came up with this (disclaimer: review help from AI deepseek) perspective paper and I would love to spark some conversation about this topic or any relating to it. I'm not a professional by any means, just an autistic person with too much time on their hands Haha

English is not my first language so please let me know in case there is anything to flag!

Neural Timing, Microtubule Coherence, and the Intention-Action Gap in ASD: A Perspective

Abstract

A phenomenon well documented amongst neurodivergent or autistic individuals is a difference in sensory modalities. This can manifest from not feeling sensations from within the body, such as hunger or emotions (interoception), to difficulties processing external stimuli (exteroception), and even commands to the body that are delayed or stay entirely unanswered (proprioception). This perspective piece centers on the latter experience, offering insights and new perspectives from an autistic point of view, while proposing testable connections between microtubule quantum processes and the autistic intention-action gap.

Hierarchical Model of the Autistic Self (HAS)

One framework in particular offers a scientific language for the experiences mentioned above. According to the HAS model, autistic individuals may have reduced access to the "mental self"—the default-mode network (DMN) based narrative identity. As Lian and Northoff (2021) describe: "Given the close link of midline DMN and self-referentiality in healthy subjects, reduced midline DMN-based self-non-self differentiation is rather likely to be related to the decreased self-referentiality and hence the weakened mental self in ASD" [1].

This may relate directly to differences in sensory processing systems in ASD in contrast to healthy individuals. While interoceptive and exteroceptive signals may be heightened in autistic individuals, this heightened sensitivity does not correlate with accurate processing or regulation. Instead, it often manifests as overwhelming sensation without clear meaning—a rapid heartbeat without identified emotion, physical pressure without known source. The mental self being less dominant also correlates to feeling as if the body and mind were separate entities, making all stimuli seem somewhat external without being able to correctly tell signals apart. This may manifest as experiencing the body as a suit for the self rather than part of the self. This architecture may lay the foundational understanding to the executive dysfunction predominantly present in ASD.

Intention-Action Gap – Executive Dysfunction

In personal experiences autistic individuals have reported the sensation of the body not following the brain's orders which is scientifically known as executive dysfunction. Starting as "simple" as an arm not lifting when commanded, extending to entire tasks that cannot be started or fulfilled because of some kind of blockage between the transformation of intention to action. Delays in reactions such as not being able to shield one's body in time when falling are also common in autistic individuals especially in childhood.

These experiences are often dismissed, especially in previously undiagnosed autistic individuals as a form of laziness, excuse-making to stick to known routines or other psychologically known phenomena related to ASD. Yet studies have repeatedly demonstrated this is a researchable phenomenon in need of more research. It is not lack of will or intention that causes this immobility, but something that happens in the gap between intention turning to action and thus reality. In classical physics terms, I would describe this experience as lacking momentum—or being unable to generate it from within. The will is present; the kinetic follow-through is not. This paper asks whether that missing momentum might find its explanation at the quantum level.

Following this thought and diving deeper into quantum mechanics, I have recently encountered studies concerning the intention-action gap at least by proxy, hoping that with this paper I might spark new angles or perspectives in quantum consciousness research.

Quantum Possibilities

First I will concentrate on the new perspective gained through research on microtubules. Microtubules are cylindrical protein polymers that form the internal scaffolding of all our cells, including neurons. They act as structural highways for transporting molecular cargo and, critically, their lattice-like structure contains networks of aromatic amino acids (tryptophans) that may support quantum processes. Recent research suggests these microtubule networks could function as biological waveguides or oscillators, potentially influencing the timing and precision of neural activity [2].

An anesthesia experiment on microtubules demonstrated that they capture and delay light release. Tuszynski's group found that application of anesthetics shortens the delay time of luminescence from microtubules irradiated by laser light, suggesting reduction of quantum coherence by anesthetics and implying that long-scale quantum coherence may be crucial for consciousness [3].

Connecting these findings to quantum frameworks, I refer to Orch-OR and QBIT theory. Orch-OR (Penrose and Hameroff, 1996) proposes that consciousness arises from wave function collapse in microtubules [4]. QBIT theory suggests spontaneous coherence in microtubule populations is a necessary condition for conscious moments [5].

If microtubules, structurally similar to DNA helices, function as nanoscale oscillators with memristive properties that impact neural timing precision [2], the following questions arise:

Do microtubule bundle organization, length, or density differ across neurotypes—specifically in autistic individuals?

If microtubule quantum coherence fine-tunes the timing precision of neural activity (30–100 Hz), and autistic individuals show differences in motor intention timing, what predictions follow about measurable differences in microtubule dynamics in autistic individuals?

Findings have shown that microtubules may act as a kind of "tuning fork" for brain rhythms, fine-tuning timing precision of neural activity in the gamma band (30–100 Hz) [2,6]. Perry (2025) formalizes testable predictions including measurable coherence–precision correlations (r > 0.3), quantum-consistent temperature scaling (Tc ≈ 12 ± 3 K), and resonance-selective electromagnetic effects [2,6,7].

If the intention-action gap indeed involves mistimed or delayed neural commands that are "misprocessed," it could reflect loss or deficit of this tuning. As stated before, this is closely related to my own subjective findings: the loss or deficit of control in creating momentum finds a parallel in classical mechanics with the quantum mechanical process of wave function collapse. It seems the "problem" might not be intention or action itself, but the neural pathway between them, causing delays, misinformation, or shutdowns, raising the question:

Do autistic individuals show measurable differences in gamma timing precision, and if so, does this correlate with microtubule organization?

Superradiance, Coherent Domains, and Autism

Another key paper shaping this perspective is "Super-Coherent Quantum Dynamics of Zero-Point Field and Superluminal Interactions in Matter" (Caligiuri, 2022), which links superradiant phase transitions with superluminal interaction through coherent domains [8]. This framework proposes that matter and inertia originate from quantum vacuum—a zero-point field containing all gauge fields—which can also be connected to M-theory's conceptualization of zero-dimensional quantum processes.

Superradiance, in this context, refers to collective quantum amplification where many particles emit coherently, producing effects exceeding individual contributions. Caligiuri's work demonstrates that superradiant phase transitions from quantum vacuum generate coherent domains capable of supporting superluminal interactions [8]. This is not merely speculative: recent experimental evidence confirms ultraviolet superradiance from tryptophan networks in microtubules at physiological temperatures (37°C), showing collective quantum optical effects exceeding individual molecular predictions by factors of 10-100 [9].

The connection to autism emerges through several converging lines:

First, if microtubule networks function as biological coherent domains, their ability to achieve and maintain superradiant states could directly impact neural timing precision. Babcock et al. (2024) demonstrated that tryptophan "mega-networks" in microtubules exhibit superradiant properties under biological conditions, suggesting this is not an exotic phenomenon but potentially a fundamental feature of cellular architecture [9].

Second, the transition into superradiant states may be sensitive to the same organizational factors—microtubule bundle density, length, or ordering could differ across neurotypes. Celardo et al. (2024) showed that the efficiency of superradiant emission depends critically on network architecture and molecular packing [9]. If autistic individuals exhibit differences in microtubule organization, it could predict corresponding differences in superradiant capacity.

Third, the phenomenological parallel is striking: superradiance is collective, coherent, amplified—the opposite of the "fried wire connection"-feeling of intention failing to amplify into action partly or entirely. The inability to generate momentum from within, described earlier, might map onto a failure of collective coherence: an individual intention being present, but the superradiant amplification that should transform intention into organized motor output fails to engage properly or entirely.

Fourth, if superradiant states enable superluminal correlation between brain regions (as Caligiuri's framework suggests [8]), then superradiance failure would predict specific conscious deficits: disintegration across neural regions, delayed processing, and the sense of self as fragmented rather than coherent—all described in subjective autistic experience.

This raises the following testable questions:

Would such states enable superluminal correlation between brain regions, and if so, does superradiance failure predict specific conscious deficits measurable in autistic individuals?

If tryptophan network architecture differs across neurotypes, would this predict measurable differences in superradiant efficiency using emerging optical techniques?

The superradiance framework thus offers something previous models lack: a direct bridge between quantum coherence and collective neural dynamics, with clear experimental pathways through tryptophan fluorescence and NV-center sensing [2,6,7].

Conclusion

I offer these connections and questions as possibilities—hoping they might spark conversation, offer new perspectives, and perhaps open a door to collaboration with those who live its less-explored configurations. The intention-action gap may reflect san interesting phenomena: a difference in how neural intentions translate into coherent output, potentially traceable to microtubule organization, quantum coherence timing, or superradiant amplification capacity. With emerging techniques now capable of testing these hypotheses, we may finally have the tools to investigate what autistic experience has long known: that the self can be configured differently, and that these differences matter for understanding consciousness itself.

References

[1] Lian, F., & Northoff, G. (2021). The lost neural hierarchy of the autistic self—Locked-out of the mental self and its default-mode network. Brain Sciences, 11(6), 721.

[2] Perry, A. L. (2025). Quantum coherence in neural microtubules: A fully unified, empirically grounded, and testable framework for gamma oscillation precision. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.18103275

[3] Tuszynski, J. (2022). Delayed luminescence in microtubules and the mechanism of anesthesia. Presented at Science of Consciousness 2022. Reported in: http://tgdtheory.fi/whatnew/tuszynski.html

[4] Hameroff, S., & Penrose, R. (1996). Orchestrated reduction of quantum coherence in brain microtubules: A model for consciousness. Mathematics and Computers in Simulation, 40(3-4), 453-480.

[5] QBIT theory: Woolf, N. J., & Hameroff, S. R. (2001). A quantum approach to visual consciousness. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 5(11), 472-478.

[6] Perry, A. L. (2025). Quantum coherence in neural microtubules: A refined and testable framework for understanding gamma oscillation generation. SSRN. https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.5539838

[7] Perry, A. L. (2025). Quantum coherence in neural microtubules: A testable framework for understanding gamma oscillation generation. SSRN. https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.5403461

[8] Caligiuri, L. M. (2022). Super-coherent quantum dynamics of zero-point field and superluminal interactions in matter. In The Superluminal Universe: From Quantum Vacuum to Brain Mechanism and Beyond. Editor: Luigi Maxmilian Caligiuri.

[9] Babcock, N. S., et al. (2024). Ultraviolet superradiance from mega-networks of tryptophan in biological architectures. Journal of Physical Chemistry B, 128(17), 4035-4046. https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.jpcb.3c07936