What is the impact of mental activity on the energy consumption of the human bra

Question

What is the impact of mental activity on the energy consumption of the human brain?

I am most interested in intellectually demanding tasks (e.g., chess matches, solving a puzzle, taking a difficult exam) versus tasks with a similar posture but less demanding (e.g., reading a newspaper, watching TV).

I heard that energy consumption stays remarkably constant regardless of the mental activity (and energy consumption can be explained by elevated heart rate due to stress). However, it seems to contradict techniques such as fMRI, where the change in metabolism is measured (unless the relative change is really small).

Explanation / Answer

The energy consumption doesn't vary that much between resting and performing tasks, as discussed in a review by Marcus Raichle and Mark A. Mintun:

In the average adult human, the brain represents approximately 2% of the total body weight but approximately 20% of the energy consumed (Clark & Sokoloff 1999), 10 times that predicted by its weight alone. Relative to this high rate of ongoing or

Related Questions

Navigate

• Browse (All)
• Browse W
• Subjects

Integrity-first tutoring: explanations and feedback only — we do not complete graded work. Learn more.