Brain’s Energy: From Neuronal Metabolism to Network Dynamics and Behavior

Neuroscience has worked consistently and productively following the Neuron Doctrine paradigm proposed by Santiago Ramón y Cajal. We have witnessed how fMRI activity has been associated with different behaviors, how molecular mechanisms have explained plasticity giving a mechanistic ground for the flexible behavior we observe in some animals, and how electrophysiology has closed the gap between neuron to whole brain approaches. Nonetheless, during this enterprise, we have forgotten to take into account the necessary conditions for the brain to work and how they may affect how the nervous system works.

All systems are subjected to physical constraints limiting their operation. The nervous system is not an exception. Much of current research in neuroscience assumes that all necessary conditions for the brain to work are met and stable through time. More interestingly, we assume that energy is relatively constant under normal conditions, even knowing that the fMRI signal reflects energetic demands through astrocytic activity. The brain uses massive amounts of energy at impressive rates. This energy needs to be in the organism, but given the rate of consumption, to be in the precise region where it is required. Despite these observations, we have maintained the assumption of energy stability, meaning that a relevant fraction of our evidence has neglected this source of variability.

During these last few years, an increasing corpus of literature has presented how energy may modulate neural activity in pathological and normal conditions as well as being associated with neurodegeneration processes. For this reason, in this Research Topic, we welcome articles focused on understanding the impact of energy over neuron, brain, and behavioral phenomena. We encourage researchers to submit experimental and theoretical works as well as perspectives, reviews, and methodological articles, allowing us to present the current and future challenges of understanding the relevance of energetic demands over brain functioning. We expect that this Research Topic will help reopen the discussion on how the homeostatic domain of the brain, here presented as energy constraints, may affect brain function in normal and pathological conditions.