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
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.
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