In a similar question, it was mentioned that the human brain consumes around 20% of our energy, that’s 400 calories. What is this energy converted to? I can understand why breathing, digestion and movement requires a lot of energy, but 400 calories for neurons firing tiny amounts of electric signals seems excessive.
In: Biology
You don’t realize how metabolically expensive firing those electric signals are
If you’re interested, look up the sodium potassium ATPase pump. It’s how we even fire a neuron and is a big part of why the brain soaks up so much of our energy
There are an estimated 86 billion neurons in the human brain. A tiny amount even a billion times is a lot!
It’s tiny amounts, sure, but it’s a lot of them, and all the time. That adds up to a lot.
Ultimately, this energy is converted to heat.
Fun fact, there were studies done that a high level chess player burns roughly 6k calories a day when they play in a tournament.
Your brain is like a circuit-board. It’s constantly giving off electrical impulses, and like literally millions of them. Each individual one is tiny bit cumulatively it consumes a lot of energy over the course of 24 hours. In the same way that a muscle fiber converts sugar into kinetic energy, the brain converts glucose into electrical energy. So think of the muscle like an engine and a brain cell like a power generator. They both use chemical fuel. But a motor converts the energy into motion, the generator converts it into electricity. That’s what your brain does, all day, every day, including while you’re asleep.
Yeah maybe yours doesn’t use that much energy.
It’s just a joke please don’t crucify me.
Is that why you can think yourself slim?
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