New International Initiative Explores How Energy Shapes Brain Function

The Simons Foundation has launched a 10-year, $80 million international research initiative to investigate how energy availability shapes brain function, including learning and information processing. Tim Vogels of the Institute of Science and Technology Austria (ISTA) will receive $3 million to build computational models connecting cellular energy metabolism with neuronal activity.

The Simons Collaboration on Brain Energetics, known as SCOBE, brings together 26 investigators from the United States, Austria, Great Britain and Norway. It is led by Thomas Clandinin of Stanford University and will study the relationship between energy and brain function at multiple scales, from individual cells to neural networks and behavior.

Vogels and his ISTA group will contribute to three of the collaboration’s four research areas. Their work will include models linking energy metabolism in mitochondria—the structures that supply energy within cells—to neuronal activity. The models are intended to serve as test beds for experiments conducted by other teams in the collaboration.

The group will also work with researchers at Stanford, the Allen Institute and the University of Oslo on models of larger neuronal networks. Using findings from experimental collaborators, the teams aim to examine how energy demands affect learning. Another strand will model how neurons and glia respond to short-term shifts in energy metabolites, including during metabolic stress.

Connecting Brain Energy to Learning

Brain cells need energy to function, but the initiative is built around questions researchers have not yet answered: how the brain distributes energy, how it balances demand during activity and rest, and how those processes affect information processing. The collaboration’s focus is to connect biological measurements of energy use with models of neural activity, rather than studying those processes in isolation.

The work could help researchers understand how energy availability relates to learning, behavior and brain resilience. The source report says the collaboration also hopes, over the longer term, to inform questions about developmental brain disorders and aging. Those are research aims, not established outcomes of the initiative, and the announcement does not claim that the work will lead directly to treatments.

Energy supply can change in settings such as reduced oxygen, pregnancy and chronic conditions including diabetes. Studying how the brain responds when energy is limited or abundant may clarify how it maintains function under different conditions—and what can happen when protective responses do not work as expected.

From Cellular Metabolism to Neural Networks

The brain is commonly described as using about 20 watts of power, roughly the output of a dim light bulb, according to the source report. That figure provides a broad sense of the organ’s energy demand, but it does not answer how energy is allocated among cells or how supply changes with activity.

Vogels has worked on computational neuroscience, including co-developing an early theory of how inhibitory connections in the brain learn. More recently, he proposed that neurons may raise their activity to use surplus energy and protect themselves from harmful by-products associated with slow metabolism. The source report says this research helped lead to his invitation to SCOBE; the proposal is part of the scientific background, not a settled explanation of neuronal behavior.

SCOBE combines expertise in neuroscience, cellular and molecular biology, engineering and theory. Its work will span different species and levels of biological organization, with computational approaches intended to help integrate findings from different experimental methods.

“It’s a real honor to be part of this ambitious collaboration.”

— Professor Tim Vogels, Institute of Science and Technology Austria

Questions the Models Must Test

The initiative is at the start of a 10-year research program, and the announcement describes planned work rather than results. It does not provide a detailed schedule for individual experiments, publication milestones or when the first findings are expected.

It is also not yet clear which specific mechanisms will emerge from the models or how well they will match experimental observations. The researchers aim to test and refine models using data from across the collaboration; no particular explanation of how energy shapes learning, rest or dreaming has been confirmed by the announcement.

The source material does not specify how the $80 million will be allocated among investigators, beyond reporting that Vogels will receive $3 million. It also does not give details about the funding schedule or the precise start and end dates for the 10-year period.

Testing Models Against Experiments

Vogels’ group is expected to develop models of the links between mitochondrial metabolism and neuronal activity, then use experimental findings from partner teams to build models of larger networks. The next substantive updates will depend on how those models are tested and what data researchers collect across the collaboration’s different research areas.

As the work proceeds, researchers plan to investigate brain responses to changes in energy availability, including metabolic stress, and examine how energy demand relates to learning. The announcement does not identify a first report or a specific date for results, so the timing of public findings remains open.

Key Questions

What is the Simons Collaboration on Brain Energetics?

SCOBE is a 10-year, $80 million international initiative launched by the Simons Foundation. It brings together 26 investigators to study how energy availability shapes brain function, from cells to networks and behavior.

What will Tim Vogels’ group study?

The ISTA group will develop computational models linking energy metabolism in mitochondria with neuronal activity. It will also work on models of larger neural networks and how energy demands may relate to learning.

How much funding will Vogels receive?

Professor Tim Vogels will receive $3 million as part of the broader $80 million initiative. The source report does not specify the funding schedule or how the rest of the budget is divided.

Have the researchers found that energy levels affect learning?

The collaboration is intended to investigate that relationship; the announcement reports planned research, not a new finding. Whether and how energy availability affects learning remains a question for the researchers to test.

When are results expected?

No date for initial findings or publications was given. The collaboration is planned to run for 10 years, with results expected to depend on its experiments and modeling work.

Source: news-medical.net