Estimating the energy requirements for long term memory formation
This work addresses the energy efficiency of memory storage in biological organisms, which could inform neuroscience and AI, but it is incremental as it builds on prior biophysical estimates without proposing new mechanisms.
The paper tackled the problem of quantifying the energy cost of long-term memory formation in biological systems, estimating it at about 10 mJ/bit and comparing it to biophysical and computer hardware benchmarks, concluding that biological memory is expensive but the underlying reason remains unknown.
Brains consume metabolic energy to process information, but also to store memories. The energy required for memory formation can be substantial, for instance in fruit flies memory formation leads to a shorter lifespan upon subsequent starvation (Mery and Kawecki, 2005). Here we estimate that the energy required corresponds to about 10mJ/bit and compare this to biophysical estimates as well as energy requirements in computer hardware. We conclude that biological memory storage is expensive, but the reason behind it is not known.