Sergey Miroshnikov

Please find enclosed papers that may spur your imagination:

Cogn Sci. 2014 Aug;38(6):1249-85.The computational and neural basis of cognitive control: charted territory and new frontiers. Botvinick MM, Cohen JD.

Phys Biol. 2013 Aug 2;10(4):040301.Macromolecular crowding: chemistry and physics meet biology (Ascona, Switzerland, 10-14 June 2012).

Foffi G, Pastore A, Piazza F, Temussi PA.

Does Thinking Really Hard Burn More Calories? 2012. Ferris Jabr http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/thinking-hard-calories/

Psychosom Med. 2008 Sep;70(7):797-804.Glycemic instability and spontaneous energy intake: association with knowledge-based work.

Chaput JP, Drapeau V, Poirier P, Teasdale N, Tremblay A.

Physiol Behav. 2007 Jan 30;90(1):66-72. Epub 2006 Oct 3.

Acute effects of knowledge-based work on feeding behavior and energy intake.

Chaput JP, Tremblay A.

J Acoust Soc Am. 2007 Jul;122(1):418-35.

Individual differences in auditory abilities.

Kidd GR, Watson CS, Gygi B.

Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 2003, Vol. 85, No. 1, 33–46. Intellectual Performance and Ego Depletion: Role of the Self in Logical Reasoning and Other Information Processing. Brandon J. Schmeichel et al.

Am J Clin Nutr. 2001 Aug;74(2):197-200.

Cognitive restraint can be offset by distraction, leading to increased meal intake in women. Bellisle F, Dalix AM.

http://www.cambridgeembodiedlanguage.com/scherbakova2013.ppt#1

Thank you, Béatrice. I will study those interesting articles.

Please check my paper https://www.researchgate.net/publication/266160479_Permutation_entropy_of_activity_data_acquired_from_lifestyle_monitoring_devices?ev=prf_pub

for an example of how BodyMedia can be used to measure calories consumed. You can also use other devices such as FitBit (www.fitbit.com) Minute-by-minute observations are available with permission from the company for a project.

It is a physiological fact that the brain has a fairly constant blood flow and oxygen consumption in all circumstances. It is relatively high energy consumption (about 18W or 20-25% of the total body metabolic rate) compared to other tissues in rest. In other words no matter what you do, sleep or awake, thinking hard or doing nothing the brain has a fairly constant energy consumption. However, the active brain areas consume somewhat (1-2%) more energy than inactive regions. This forms the basis of the BOLD response related fMRI, PET, optical imaging etc. methods. In conclusion, the question that you raise has many aspects and interpretations. For solving a particular task, first you need a brain running at "full speed" and you need a group of neurons to be activated by using a tiny little extra energy. But without a brain, that little energy will not solve the problem alone. You may also ask which is the smallest brain that is able to solve the particular task. This is a quite different problem. In other words you can perform a basic calculation with either a supercomputer occupying an entire room or with a microcontroller or with an electronic circuit made of several digital gates (NAND, OR, XOR). But you can not beat a professional chess player with set of NAND gates.

Thank you, Rachel Heath. I read your article about Permutation entropy with interest and FitBit is good device that I did not know before. I will think about possibility to use it in my research.

Thank you, Gábor Jandó. I agree with you, that the question has many aspects. Now first of all I try to compare all possible approaches to measure of energy consumption. Your idea about searching which is the smallest brain that is able to solve the particular task will be especially suitable when we will compare our results on the man and computer model.