Estimating the energy requirements for long term memory formation

Brains consume metabolic energy to process information, but also to store memories. The energy required for memory formation can be substantial, for instance in fruit flies memory formation leads to a shorter lifespan upon subsequent starvation (Mery and Kawecki, 2005). Here we estimate that the energy required corresponds to about 10mJ/bit and compare this to biophysical estimates as well as energy requirements in computer hardware. We conclude that while the reason behind it is not known, biological memory storage is metabolically expensive,

[1]  P. Magistretti,et al.  Lactate supply overtakes glucose when neural computational and cognitive loads scale up , 2022, bioRxiv.

[2]  B. Van den Bergh.  Bugs on Drugs: A Drosophila melanogaster Gut Model to Study In Vivo Antibiotic Tolerance of E. coli , 2022, Microorganisms.

[3]  Jan Karbowski,et al.  Metabolic constraints on synaptic learning and memory. , 2019, Journal of neurophysiology.

[4]  Mark C. W. van Rossum,et al.  Energy efficient synaptic plasticity , 2019, bioRxiv.

[5]  M. Gáliková,et al.  Temperature induces changes in Drosophila energy stores , 2019, Scientific Reports.

[6]  E. Meyhofer,et al.  Parallelized, real-time, metabolic-rate measurements from individual Drosophila , 2018, Scientific Reports.

[7]  Paola Cognigni,et al.  Do the right thing: neural network mechanisms of memory formation, expression and update in Drosophila , 2018, Current Opinion in Neurobiology.

[8]  T. Préat,et al.  Upregulated energy metabolism in the Drosophila mushroom body is the trigger for long-term memory , 2017, Nature Communications.

[9]  Mohammad Modarres,et al.  Reliability engineering and risk analysis : a practical guide , 2016 .

[10]  Tammy J. Toney-Butler.  Physiology, Glucose Metabolism , 2015 .

[11]  William J. Dally,et al.  SLIP: Reducing wire energy in the memory hierarchy , 2015, 2015 ACM/IEEE 42nd Annual International Symposium on Computer Architecture (ISCA).

[12]  T. Préat,et al.  To Favor Survival Under Food Shortage, the Brain Disables Costly Memory , 2013, Science.

[13]  D. Attwell,et al.  Synaptic Energy Use and Supply , 2012, Neuron.

[14]  Jan Karbowski,et al.  Approximate Invariance of Metabolic Energy per Synapse during Development in Mammalian Brains , 2012, PloS one.

[15]  Matthias S. Müller,et al.  Characterizing the energy consumption of data transfers and arithmetic operations on x86−64 processors , 2010, International Conference on Green Computing.

[16]  A. Roopra,et al.  Metabolic Regulation of Neuronal Plasticity by the Energy Sensor AMPK , 2010, PloS one.

[17]  S. Benzer,et al.  Prandiology of Drosophila and the CAFE assay , 2007, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

[18]  J. Dubnau,et al.  Deconstructing Memory in Drosophila , 2005, Current Biology.

[19]  Frederic Mery,et al.  A Cost of Long-Term Memory in Drosophila , 2005, Science.

[20]  P. Lennie.  The Cost of Cortical Computation , 2003, Current Biology.

[21]  Wulfram Gerstner,et al.  SPIKING NEURON MODELS Single Neurons , Populations , Plasticity , 2002 .

[22]  S. Laughlin,et al.  An Energy Budget for Signaling in the Grey Matter of the Brain , 2001, Journal of cerebral blood flow and metabolism : official journal of the International Society of Cerebral Blood Flow and Metabolism.

[23]  M. V. Rossum,et al.  Energy e � cient synaptic plasticity 1 , 2020 .