It seems likely that the brain directs more or less energy to different sets of neurons based on their importance to carrying out current task, but do we know the mechanism by which it does that? Does it make neurons spike more/less often and if so how? Or is it an open question? #neuroscience
@neuralreckoning An extra layer of this question is "at which timescale"?
On average, a neuron with a high baseline firing rate or highly active presynaptic network will consume more energy compared to a sparsely firing neuron (e.g., layer 2/3 cortex), independently of the task at hand. Intuitively, these parameters relate more to neuronal cell-type properties (transcription profile, connectivity, brain area) and thus are subject to evolutionary optimizations.
This review seems like a good starting point https://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(22)00227-5
