Review

Nature Reviews Neuroscience 6, 841-849 (November 2005) | doi:10.1038/nrn1784

Neuroenergetics and the kinetic design of excitatory synapses

David Attwell1 & Alasdair Gibb2  About the authors

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Why is the characteristic timescale of neural information processing in the millisecond range, corresponding to a 'clock speed' of about 1 kHz, whereas the clock speed of modern computers is about 3 GHz? Here we investigate how the brain's energy supply limits the maximum rate at which the brain can compute, and how the molecular components of excitatory synapses have evolved properties that are matched to the information processing they perform.

Author affiliations

  1. Department of Physiology University College London, Gower Street, London WC1E 6BT, UK.
  2. Department of Pharmacology, University College London, Gower Street, London WC1E 6BT, UK.

Correspondence to: David Attwell1 Email: d.attwell@ucl.ac.uk

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