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The Simons Foundation has launched a 10-year, $80 million international collaboration to study how energy availability affects brain function. ISTA professor Tim Vogels will receive $3 million to develop computational models connecting cellular energy metabolism with neural activity and learning.
The Simons Foundation has launched an $80 million, 10-year international research collaboration to investigate how energy supply shapes brain function, including learning and neural activity. Institute of Science and Technology Austria professor Tim Vogels will receive $3 million to develop computational models for the project, which brings together 26 investigators in four countries.
Known as the Simons Collaboration on Brain Energetics (SCOBE), the initiative is led by Thomas Clandinin of Stanford University. Its researchers span the United States, Austria, Great Britain and Norway, combining neuroscience with cellular and molecular biology, engineering and theoretical work. The collaboration aims to study energy processes across scales, from individual cells to neural networks and behavior.
Vogels and his group at ISTA will contribute to three of the collaboration’s four research areas. They will build models linking energy metabolism in mitochondria—the structures that supply energy within cells—with neuronal activity. The models are intended to help test and interpret experiments conducted by other SCOBE researchers.
The group will also work with teams at Stanford, the Allen Institute and the University of Oslo on models of larger neuron networks and how energy demands may affect learning. In another area, it will use collaborators’ data to model the relationship between energy supply and demand, including how neurons and glia respond to short-term shifts in energy metabolites. The initiative’s broader questions include how the brain responds to metabolic stress and what may happen when its protective mechanisms do not work.
Linking Brain Energy to Learning
The project targets a basic gap in understanding: although the brain uses energy to function, researchers do not yet fully know how that energy is distributed and matched to changing demands. Models that connect cellular metabolism with neural activity could help researchers interpret how those processes work together, and how they relate to learning and behavior.
The collaboration’s scope also allows experimental and computational researchers to work across different biological scales and data types. Its findings could inform research into developmental brain disorders and aging, areas named by the initiative as longer-term questions. Those are research aims, not promised outcomes: the source material does not report results or establish that the project will produce a specific clinical application.
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Why Brain Energy Is Under Study
The brain is often described as having a substantial energy demand relative to its size. The source report estimates that the human brain runs on about 20 watts, roughly the power of a dim light bulb, while emphasizing that scientists still have unanswered questions about how the brain receives, distributes and uses energy. That estimate describes the brain’s approximate power use; it is not a measurement from the new initiative.
Vogels’ prior work includes co-developing a theory of how inhibitory connections in the brain learn. More recently, he has studied the brain’s energy budget and proposed that neurons may increase their activity to use surplus energy and protect themselves from harmful by-products of slow metabolism. This is a research proposal attributed to Vogels, not a conclusion established by SCOBE. The report says this line of work helped lead to his invitation to join the collaboration.
SCOBE will examine energy changes under different conditions, including metabolic stress. The source identifies diabetes, reduced oxygen levels and pregnancy as examples of circumstances that can affect energy available to the brain; it does not claim that the initiative has already established particular effects in those conditions.
“It’s a real honor to be part of this ambitious collaboration. By contributing our expertise in computational neuroscience, my ISTA research group and I hope to tackle some of the big unanswered questions about the brain and gain a better understanding of how energy shapes the way it works, learns, and adapts.”
— Professor Tim Vogels, Institute of Science and Technology Austria
Questions the Models Must Test
The initiative has been announced, but the source report does not provide a detailed timetable for individual studies, a breakdown of the $80 million budget beyond Vogels’ $3 million allocation, or specific milestones for assessing progress. It also does not describe the experiments or datasets that will be available to test the models.
Many of the project’s central points remain open research questions: how energy availability affects neural processing, how the brain adapts when energy is scarce or excessive, and how metabolism relates to learning. Vogels’ proposed account of neurons using surplus energy is one hypothesis under investigation, not a settled finding. No results from SCOBE are reported yet.
From Cell Models to Networks
Vogels’ group is expected to develop the mitochondrial and neuronal-activity models and use them as test beds for experiments by other collaboration members. The next phase described in the source also includes building larger-scale models with researchers at Stanford, the Allen Institute and the University of Oslo, drawing on experimental findings from across the initiative.
Researchers will also use data from collaborators studying changes in energy availability to examine how neurons and glia respond to short-term shifts in energy metabolites. The report does not give dates for these stages or specify when results will be published. Progress will depend on the experimental evidence and data collected during the collaboration’s planned 10 years.
Key Questions
What is the Simons Collaboration on Brain Energetics?
SCOBE is a 10-year, $80 million international research collaboration launched by the Simons Foundation. It brings together 26 investigators to study how energy availability affects brain function, from cells to networks and behavior.
What will Tim Vogels and his team do?
The ISTA group will develop computational models linking mitochondrial energy metabolism with neuronal activity, and larger models of neuron networks. It will also study how energy supply and demand relate to changes in brain energy availability.
How much funding is allocated to Vogels’ work?
The source report says Vogels will receive $3 million as part of the initiative’s total $80 million. It does not provide further details on how that allocation will be distributed over time.
Has the initiative found that energy changes affect learning?
No findings are reported. The collaboration is designed to investigate how energy demands may influence learning; this remains a research question, not a result established by the announcement.
When will the project’s results be available?
The collaboration is planned to run for 10 years, but the source report gives no publication schedule or date for initial results.
Source: news-medical.net
