Welcome to Quantum Magazine's podcast.

Each episode, we bring you stories about developments in science and mathematics.

I'm Susan Vallett.

When our phones and computers run out of power, their glowing screens go dark, and they die a sort of digital death.

But switch them to low power mode to conserve energy, and they cut expendable operations

to keep basic processes humming along until their batteries can be recharged.

Our energy-intensive brain needs to keep its lights on too. And neuroscientists have uncovered an

energy-saving mode in vision system neurons that works at the cost of being able to see fine-grained

details. That's next. Quantum Magazine is an editorially independent online publication supported by the Simon's Foundation

to enhance public understanding of science.

Brain cells depend primarily on steady deliveries of the sugar glucose, which they convert to

adenosine triphosphate, or ATP.

This fuels their information processing.

When we're a little hungry, our brain usually doesn't change its energy consumption much,

but given that humans and other

animals have historically faced the thread of long periods of starvation, sometimes seasonally,

scientists have wondered whether brains might have their own kind of low power mode for emergencies.

Now, in a paper published in Neuron in January, neuroscientists in

Natalie Rokefort's lab at the University of Edinburgh have revealed an energy-saving strategy

in the visual systems of mice. Mice were deprived of sufficient food for weeks at a time,

long enough for them to lose 15 to 20% of their typical healthy weight. And the researchers found that when the mice were deprived,

neurons in the visual cortex reduced the amount of ATP used at their synapses by 29%.

...