Power Consumption During Neuronal Computation
Abstract
Maintaining the ability of the nervous system to perceive, remember, process, and react to the outside world necessitates a continuous energy supply. However, the overall power consumption is remarkably low, which has inspired engineers to mimic nervous systems in designing artificial cochlea, retinal implants, and brain–computer interfaces (BCIs) to improve the quality of life in patients. Such neuromorphic devices are both energy efficient and increasingly able to emulate many functions of the human nervous system. We explore the energy constraints of neuronal signaling within biology, review the quantitative tradeoff between energy use and information processing, and ask whether the biophysics and design of nerve cells minimizes energy consumption.
- Authors:
-
- Univ. College London (United Kingdom)
- Ludwig Maximilian Univ., Munich (Germany)
- Publication Date:
- Research Org.:
- Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States). Oak Ridge Leadership Computing Facility (OLCF)
- Sponsoring Org.:
- USDOE Office of Science (SC)
- OSTI Identifier:
- 1565222
- Grant/Contract Number:
- AC05-00OR22725
- Resource Type:
- Accepted Manuscript
- Journal Name:
- Proceedings of the IEEE
- Additional Journal Information:
- Journal Volume: 102; Journal Issue: 5; Journal ID: ISSN 0018-9219
- Publisher:
- Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
- Subject:
- 42 ENGINEERING; Biological information theory; biological neural networks; biological optimization; cellular biophysics; energy consumption; energy efficiency
Citation Formats
Sengupta, Biswa, and Stemmler, Martin B. Power Consumption During Neuronal Computation. United States: N. p., 2014.
Web. doi:10.1109/jproc.2014.2307755.
Sengupta, Biswa, & Stemmler, Martin B. Power Consumption During Neuronal Computation. United States. https://doi.org/10.1109/jproc.2014.2307755
Sengupta, Biswa, and Stemmler, Martin B. Mon .
"Power Consumption During Neuronal Computation". United States. https://doi.org/10.1109/jproc.2014.2307755. https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1565222.
@article{osti_1565222,
title = {Power Consumption During Neuronal Computation},
author = {Sengupta, Biswa and Stemmler, Martin B.},
abstractNote = {Maintaining the ability of the nervous system to perceive, remember, process, and react to the outside world necessitates a continuous energy supply. However, the overall power consumption is remarkably low, which has inspired engineers to mimic nervous systems in designing artificial cochlea, retinal implants, and brain–computer interfaces (BCIs) to improve the quality of life in patients. Such neuromorphic devices are both energy efficient and increasingly able to emulate many functions of the human nervous system. We explore the energy constraints of neuronal signaling within biology, review the quantitative tradeoff between energy use and information processing, and ask whether the biophysics and design of nerve cells minimizes energy consumption.},
doi = {10.1109/jproc.2014.2307755},
journal = {Proceedings of the IEEE},
number = 5,
volume = 102,
place = {United States},
year = {Mon Apr 14 00:00:00 EDT 2014},
month = {Mon Apr 14 00:00:00 EDT 2014}
}
Free Publicly Available Full Text
Publisher's Version of Record
Other availability
Search WorldCat to find libraries that may hold this journal
Cited by: 59 works
Citation information provided by
Web of Science
Web of Science
Figures / Tables:
Fig. 1: Energy efficiency of an analog and a pulsatile system. The analog system (blue) is represented by a continuous-time RC filter, while the pulsatile system (green) is represented by a serial M-bit register. (a) Analog system consumes increasingly less power as the SNR decreases, while the power required formore »
All figures and tables
(9 total)
Save to My Library
You must Sign In or Create an Account in order to save documents to your library.
Works referenced in this record:
Balanced Inhibition and Excitation Drive Spike Activity in Spinal Half-Centers
journal, January 2007
- Berg, Rune W.; Alaburda, Aidas; Hounsgaard, Jørn
- Science, Vol. 315, Issue 5810
The Variable Discharge of Cortical Neurons: Implications for Connectivity, Computation, and Information Coding
journal, May 1998
- Shadlen, Michael N.; Newsome, William T.
- The Journal of Neuroscience, Vol. 18, Issue 10
On the Fight Between Excitation and Inhibition: Location Is Everything
journal, September 2004
- Mel, Bartlett W.; Schiller, Jackie
- Science's STKE, Vol. 2004, Issue 250
Ionic Mechanism Underlying Optimal Stimuli for Neuronal Excitation: Role of Na+ Channel Inactivation
journal, September 2012
- Clay, John R.; Forger, Daniel B.; Paydarfar, David
- PLoS ONE, Vol. 7, Issue 9
Noise, neural codes and cortical organization
journal, August 1994
- Shadlen, Michael N.; Newsome, William T.
- Current Opinion in Neurobiology, Vol. 4, Issue 4
A Tonic Hyperpolarization Underlying Contrast Adaptation in Cat Visual Cortex
journal, May 1997
- Carandini, Matteo; Ferster, David
- Science, Vol. 276, Issue 5314
Ion motive ATPases. II. Energy coupling and work output
journal, January 1987
- Pedersen, Peter L.; Carafoli, Ernesto
- Trends in Biochemical Sciences, Vol. 12
Sharp Bounds on the Entropy of the Poisson Law and Related Quantities
journal, May 2010
- Adell, José A.; Lekuona, Alberto; Yu, Yaming
- IEEE Transactions on Information Theory, Vol. 56, Issue 5
Metabolic Maturation of Auditory Neurones in the Superior Olivary Complex
journal, June 2013
- Trattner, Barbara; Gravot, Céline Marie; Grothe, Benedikt
- PLoS ONE, Vol. 8, Issue 6
Balanced Excitatory and Inhibitory Synaptic Currents Promote Efficient Coding and Metabolic Efficiency
journal, October 2013
- Sengupta, Biswa; Laughlin, Simon B.; Niven, Jeremy E.
- PLoS Computational Biology, Vol. 9, Issue 10
Simulations of cortical pyramidal neurons synchronized by inhibitory interneurons
journal, September 1991
- Lytton, W. W.; Sejnowski, T. J.
- Journal of Neurophysiology, Vol. 66, Issue 3
Balanced Amplification: A New Mechanism of Selective Amplification of Neural Activity Patterns
journal, February 2009
- Murphy, Brendan K.; Miller, Kenneth D.
- Neuron, Vol. 61, Issue 4
Metabolic cost as a unifying principle governing neuronal biophysics
journal, June 2010
- Hasenstaub, Andrea; Otte, Stephani; Callaway, Edward
- Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Vol. 107, Issue 27
Sodium Entry during Action Potentials of Mammalian Neurons: Incomplete Inactivation and Reduced Metabolic Efficiency in Fast-Spiking Neurons
journal, December 2009
- Carter, Brett C.; Bean, Bruce P.
- Neuron, Vol. 64, Issue 6
Energy-Efficient Action Potentials in Hippocampal Mossy Fibers
journal, September 2009
- Alle, Henrik; Roth, Arnd; Geiger, Jörg R. P.
- Science, Vol. 325, Issue 5946
Gamma Oscillation by Synaptic Inhibition in a Hippocampal Interneuronal Network Model
journal, October 1996
- Wang, Xiao-Jing; Buzsáki, György
- The Journal of Neuroscience, Vol. 16, Issue 20
The optimum density of sodium channels in an unmyelinated nerve
journal, June 1975
- Hodgkin, Jonathan Alan
- Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London. B, Biological Sciences, Vol. 270, Issue 908, p. 297-300
The action potential in mammalian central neurons
journal, June 2007
- Bean, Bruce P.
- Nature Reviews Neuroscience, Vol. 8, Issue 6
Unique features of action potential initiation in cortical neurons
journal, April 2006
- Naundorf, Björn; Wolf, Fred; Volgushev, Maxim
- Nature, Vol. 440, Issue 7087
Voltage-Gated Sodium Channels Shape Subthreshold EPSPs in Layer 5 Pyramidal Neurons From Rat Prefrontal Cortex
journal, October 2001
- González-Burgos, Guillermo; Barrionuevo, German
- Journal of Neurophysiology, Vol. 86, Issue 4
Subthreshold Sodium Current Underlies Essential Functional Specializations at Primary Auditory Afferents
journal, April 2008
- Curti, Sebastián; Gómez, Leonel; Budelli, Ruben
- Journal of Neurophysiology, Vol. 99, Issue 4
A quantitative description of membrane current and its application to conduction and excitation in nerve
journal, August 1952
- Hodgkin, A. L.; Huxley, A. F.
- The Journal of Physiology, Vol. 117, Issue 4
Consequences of Converting Graded to Action Potentials upon Neural Information Coding and Energy Efficiency
journal, January 2014
- Sengupta, Biswa; Laughlin, Simon Barry; Niven, Jeremy Edward
- PLoS Computational Biology, Vol. 10, Issue 1
Perfect Recovery and Sensitivity Analysis of Time Encoded Bandlimited Signals
journal, October 2004
- Lazar, A. A.; Toth, L. T.
- IEEE Transactions on Circuits and Systems I: Regular Papers, Vol. 51, Issue 10
Recovery of Stimuli Encoded with a Hodgkin–Huxley Neuron Using Conditional PRCs
book, November 2011
- Kim, Anmo J.; Lazar, Aurel A.
- Phase Response Curves in Neuroscience
The identification of the sodium-pump as the membrane-boundNa+/K+-ATPase: a commentary The influence of some cations on an adenosine triphosphatase from peripheral nerves on ‘The influence of some cations on an adenosine triphosphatase from peripheral nerves’ by J.C. Skou Biochim. Biophys. Acta 23 (1957) 394–401
journal, January 1989
- Chr. Skou, Jens
- Biochimica et Biophysica Acta (BBA) - General Subjects, Vol. 1000
Energy-Optimal Electrical Excitation of Nerve Fibers
journal, April 2005
- Jezernik, S.; Morari, M.
- IEEE Transactions on Biomedical Engineering, Vol. 52, Issue 4
Optimal Stimulus Shapes for Neuronal Excitation
journal, July 2011
- Forger, Daniel B.; Paydarfar, David; Clay, John R.
- PLoS Computational Biology, Vol. 7, Issue 7
Energy Efficient Neural Codes
journal, April 1996
- Levy, William B.; Baxter, Robert A.
- Neural Computation, Vol. 8, Issue 3
Energy limitation as a selective pressure on the evolution of sensory systems
journal, June 2008
- Niven, J. E.; Laughlin, S. B.
- Journal of Experimental Biology, Vol. 211, Issue 11
Energy as a constraint on the coding and processing of sensory information
journal, August 2001
- Laughlin, S.
- Current Opinion in Neurobiology, Vol. 11, Issue 4
Comparison of Langevin and Markov channel noise models for neuronal signal generation
journal, January 2010
- Sengupta, B.; Laughlin, S. B.; Niven, J. E.
- Physical Review E, Vol. 81, Issue 1
An Energy Budget for Signaling in the Grey Matter of the Brain
journal, October 2001
- Attwell, David; Laughlin, Simon B.
- Journal of Cerebral Blood Flow & Metabolism, Vol. 21, Issue 10
Steady-state current-voltage relationship of the Na/K pump in guinea pig ventricular myocytes.
journal, September 1989
- Gadsby, D. C.; Nakao, M.
- Journal of General Physiology, Vol. 94, Issue 3
Second Order Phase Transition in Neural Rate Coding: Binary Encoding is Optimal for Rapid Signal Transmission
journal, February 2003
- Bethge, Matthias; Rotermund, David; Pawelzik, Klaus
- Physical Review Letters, Vol. 90, Issue 8
Metabolic cost of neuronal information in an empirical stimulus-response model
journal, March 2013
- Kostal, Lubomir; Lansky, Petr; McDonnell, Mark D.
- Biological Cybernetics, Vol. 107, Issue 3
Neural integration in the first optic neuropile of dragonflies
journal, January 1973
- Laughlin, Simon B.
- Journal of Comparative Physiology, Vol. 84, Issue 4
Subthreshold Voltage Noise Due to Channel Fluctuations in Active Neuronal Membranes
journal, January 2000
- Steinmetz, Peter N.; Manwani, Amit; Koch, Christof
- Journal of Computational Neuroscience, Vol. 9, Issue 2, p. 133-148
Ion Channel Stochasticity May Be Critical in Determining the Reliability and Precision of Spike Timing
journal, October 1998
- Schneidman, Elad; Freedman, Barry; Segev, Idan
- Neural Computation, Vol. 10, Issue 7
Nonspiking and Spiking Proprioceptors in the Crab: White Noise Analysis of Spiking CB-Chordotonal Organ Afferents
journal, April 2003
- Gamble, E. Rolland; DiCaprio, Ralph A.
- Journal of Neurophysiology, Vol. 89, Issue 4
The metabolic cost of neural information
journal, May 1998
- Laughlin, Simon B.; de Ruyter van Steveninck, Rob R.; Anderson, John C.
- Nature Neuroscience, Vol. 1, Issue 1
The Efficiency of Sensory Information Coding by Mechanoreceptor Neurons
journal, June 1997
- Juusola, Mikko; French, Andrew S.
- Neuron, Vol. 18, Issue 6
Coding of Information in Limit Cycle Oscillators
journal, December 2009
- Schleimer, Jan-Hendrik; Stemmler, Martin
- Physical Review Letters, Vol. 103, Issue 24
Weakly Connected Neural Networks
book, January 1997
- Hoppensteadt, Frank C.; Izhikevich, Eugene M.
- Applied Mathematical Sciences
The Effect of Cell Size and Channel Density on Neuronal Information Encoding and Energy Efficiency
journal, June 2013
- Sengupta, Biswa; Faisal, A. Aldo; Laughlin, Simon B.
- Journal of Cerebral Blood Flow & Metabolism, Vol. 33, Issue 9
Combined Analog and Action Potential Coding in Hippocampal Mossy Fibers
journal, March 2006
- Alle, Henrik; Geiger, Jörg R. P.
- Science, Vol. 311, Issue 5765
The plasma membrane calcium ATPase (PMCA) of neurones is electroneutral and exchanges 2 H+for each Ca2+or Ba2+ion extruded
journal, January 2009
- Thomas, Roger C.
- The Journal of Physiology, Vol. 587, Issue 2
Modulation of intracortical synaptic potentials by presynaptic somatic membrane potential
journal, April 2006
- Shu, Yousheng; Hasenstaub, Andrea; Duque, Alvaro
- Nature, Vol. 441, Issue 7094
Cytochrome oxidase: an endogenous metabolic marker for neuronal activity
journal, March 1989
- Wong-Riley, Margaret T. T.
- Trends in Neurosciences, Vol. 12, Issue 3
Analog Versus Digital: Extrapolating from Electronics to Neurobiology
journal, October 1998
- Sarpeshkar, Rahul
- Neural Computation, Vol. 10, Issue 7
Performance comparison of analog and digital circuits
journal, January 1985
- Hosticka, B. J.
- Proceedings of the IEEE, Vol. 73, Issue 1
Analog-to-digital converter survey and analysis
journal, April 1999
- Walden, R. H.
- IEEE Journal on Selected Areas in Communications, Vol. 17, Issue 4
Sparse coding of sensory inputs
journal, August 2004
- Olshausen, B.; Field, D.
- Current Opinion in Neurobiology, Vol. 14, Issue 4
Origin of variability in quantal size in cultured hippocampal neurons and hippocampal slices.
journal, July 1990
- Bekkers, J. M.; Richerson, G. B.; Stevens, C. F.
- Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Vol. 87, Issue 14
Redundancy reduction revisited
journal, January 2001
- Barlow, H.
- Network: Computation in Neural Systems, Vol. 12, Issue 3
Quantal analysis and synaptic efficacy in the CNS
journal, October 1991
- Korn, Henri; Faber, Donald S.
- Trends in Neurosciences, Vol. 14, Issue 10
Optimal Inputs for Phase Models of Spiking Neurons
journal, June 2006
- Moehlis, Jeff; Shea-Brown, Eric; Rabitz, Herschel
- Journal of Computational and Nonlinear Dynamics, Vol. 1, Issue 4
Transducer noise in a photoreceptor
journal, February 1979
- Lillywhite, P. G.; Laughlin, S. B.
- Nature, Vol. 277, Issue 5697
Action Potential Energetics at the Organismal Level Reveal a Trade-Off in Efficiency at High Firing Rates
journal, December 2013
- Lewis, John E.; Gilmour, Kathleen M.; Moorhead, Mayron J.
- The Journal of Neuroscience, Vol. 34, Issue 1
Action Potential Energy Efficiency Varies Among Neuron Types in Vertebrates and Invertebrates
journal, July 2010
- Sengupta, Biswa; Stemmler, Martin; Laughlin, Simon B.
- PLoS Computational Biology, Vol. 6, Issue 7
Information and Efficiency in the Nervous System—A Synthesis
journal, July 2013
- Sengupta, Biswa; Stemmler, Martin B.; Friston, Karl J.
- PLoS Computational Biology, Vol. 9, Issue 7
‘Rejuvenation’ protects neurons in mouse models of Parkinson’s disease
journal, June 2007
- Chan, C. Savio; Guzman, Jaime N.; Ilijic, Ema
- Nature, Vol. 447, Issue 7148
Energy-Efficient Neuronal Computation via Quantal Synaptic Failures
journal, June 2002
- Levy, William B.; Baxter, Robert A.
- The Journal of Neuroscience, Vol. 22, Issue 11
Time Optimal Control Systems
journal, April 1959
- LaSalle, J. P.
- Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Vol. 45, Issue 4
Oxidant stress evoked by pacemaking in dopaminergic neurons is attenuated by DJ-1
journal, November 2010
- Guzman, Jaime N.; Sanchez-Padilla, Javier; Wokosin, David
- Nature, Vol. 468, Issue 7324
Capacity and cutoff rate for Poisson-type channels
journal, November 1980
- Davis, M.
- IEEE Transactions on Information Theory, Vol. 26, Issue 6
Ultra Low Power Bioelectronics: Fundamentals, Biomedical Applications, and Bio-Inspired Systems
book, December 2010
- Sarpeshkar, Rahul
Resolution of Nested Neuronal Representations Can Be Exponential in the Number of Neurons
journal, July 2012
- Mathis, Alexander; Herz, Andreas V. M.; Stemmler, Martin B.
- Physical Review Letters, Vol. 109, Issue 1
Communication in Neuronal Networks
journal, September 2003
- Laughlin, S. B.
- Science, Vol. 301, Issue 5641
Prediction and Decoding of Retinal Ganglion Cell Responses with a Probabilistic Spiking Model
journal, November 2005
- Pillow, Jonathan W.; Paninski, Liam; Uzzell, Valerie J.
- The Journal of Neuroscience, Vol. 25, Issue 47
Reliability of Spike Timing in Neocortical Neurons
journal, June 1995
- Mainen, Zachary F.; Sejnowski, Terrence J.
- Science, Vol. 268, Issue 5216
Neuroenergetics and the kinetic design of excitatory synapses
journal, November 2005
- Attwell, David; Gibb, Alasdair
- Nature Reviews Neuroscience, Vol. 6, Issue 11
Molecular Physiology and Pathophysiology of Electroneutral Cation-Chloride Cotransporters
journal, April 2005
- Gamba, Gerardo
- Physiological Reviews, Vol. 85, Issue 2
Sparse coding with an overcomplete basis set: A strategy employed by V1?
journal, December 1997
- Olshausen, Bruno A.; Field, David J.
- Vision Research, Vol. 37, Issue 23
The Energy Use Associated with Neural Computation in the Cerebellum
journal, November 2009
- Howarth, Clare; Peppiatt-Wildman, Claire M.; Attwell, David
- Journal of Cerebral Blood Flow & Metabolism, Vol. 30, Issue 2
Works referencing / citing this record:
Events in Early Nervous System Evolution
journal, September 2019
- Paulin, Michael G.; Cahill‐Lane, Joseph
- Topics in Cognitive Science
Metabolic Cost of Dendritic Ca2+ Action Potentials in Layer 5 Pyramidal Neurons
journal, November 2019
- Yi, Guosheng; Fan, Yaqin; Wang, Jiang
- Frontiers in Neuroscience, Vol. 13
Neuromorphic Liquid Marbles With Aqueous Carbon Nanotube Cores
text, January 2019
- Mayne, Richard; Draper, Thomas C.; Phillips, Neil
- arXiv
Relationships between short and fast brain timescales
journal, August 2017
- Déli, Eva; Tozzi, Arturo; Peters, James F.
- Cognitive Neurodynamics, Vol. 11, Issue 6
Fluctuations When Driving Between Nonequilibrium Steady States
journal, June 2017
- Riechers, Paul M.; Crutchfield, James P.
- Journal of Statistical Physics, Vol. 168, Issue 4
Building a minimum frustration framework for brain functions over long time scales: From Protein Folding to Brain Activity
journal, April 2016
- Tozzi, Arturo; Flå, Tor; Peters, James F.
- Journal of Neuroscience Research, Vol. 94, Issue 8
Shape-based Magnetic Domain Wall Drift for an Artificial Spintronic Leaky Integrate-and-Fire Neuron
text, January 2019
- Brigner, Wesley H.; Hassan, Naimul; Jiang-Wei, Lucian
- arXiv
Flexible Neuromorphic Electronics for Computing, Soft Robotics, and Neuroprosthetics
journal, September 2019
- Park, Hea‐Lim; Lee, Yeongjun; Kim, Naryung
- Advanced Materials, Vol. 32, Issue 15
Collective capacitive and memristive responses in random nanowire networks: Emergence of critical connectivity pathways
journal, October 2018
- O’Callaghan, C.; Rocha, C. G.; Niosi, F.
- Journal of Applied Physics, Vol. 124, Issue 15
Three Artificial Spintronic Leaky Integrate-and-Fire Neurons
journal, June 2020
- Brigner, Wesley H.; Hu, Xuan; Hassan, Naimul
- SPIN, Vol. 10, Issue 02
Fluctuations When Driving Between Nonequilibrium Steady States
text, January 2016
- Riechers, P. M.; Crutchfield, J. P.
- arXiv
Variational Principle of Least Psychomotor Action: Modelling Effects on Action from Disturbances in Psychomotor Work Involving Human, Cyborg, and Robot Workers
journal, May 2019
- Fox, Stephen; Kotelba, Adrian
- Entropy, Vol. 21, Issue 6
A Bayesian Generative Model of Vestibular Afferent Neuron Spiking
posted_content, January 2020
- Paulin, Michael; Pullar, Kiri; Hoffman, Larry
- bioRxiv
Optimizing stimulus waveforms for electroceuticals
journal, August 2018
- Chang, Joshua; Paydarfar, David
- Biological Cybernetics, Vol. 113, Issue 1-2
Identifying Mirror Symmetry Density with Delay in Spiking Neural Networks
preprint, January 2017
- George, Jonathan K.; Soci, Cesare; Sorger, Volker J.
- arXiv
Magnetic domain wall neuron with lateral inhibition
journal, October 2018
- Hassan, Naimul; Hu, Xuan; Jiang-Wei, Lucian
- Journal of Applied Physics, Vol. 124, Issue 15
Figures / Tables found in this record:
Figures/Tables have been extracted from DOE-funded journal article accepted manuscripts.