Power of the Brain

The times they are a-changin’.

This post seems to be older than 15 years—a long time on the internet. It might be outdated.

A little while ago, I was wondering to myself how much power the brain uses. Today, BoingBoing helped me answer that question:
From www.boingboing.net:

The brain consumes 20 percent of your body’s energy, but what for? Turns out a third of the energy is spent on “housekeeping.”

I crossed check this and 20% appears to be dead on (see http://hypertextbook.com/facts/2001/JacquelineLing.shtml). As it turns out, it’s also about 20 Watts of power to run the brain (on a roughly 2000 food calorie diet).

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