Neuroenergetics of Brain Operation and Implications for Energy-Aware Computing

Energy-awareness is a relatively less-studied aspect of artificial intelligence and the development of intelligent devices. Here we analyze metabolic processes in brains and their role in higher cognitive activities. To describe important aspects of the energy management in large-scale populations of the cortical tissue, we introduce a novel hierarchical capillary-astrocyteneuron (CAN) model. CAN is a highly simplified model, still it can describe important aspects of synchronization-desynchronization transitions observed in brain imaging experiments. Energy constraints act as regularization terms in equations of brain dynamics models, producing oscillatory modes across cortical regions. These oscillations are considered neural correlates of higher cognition and awareness. The introduced oscillatory CAN arrays present a possible approach towards developing energy-efficient dynamical memories and learning systems.