Brain Growth Suppresses Body Growth in Children
The metabolic costs of brain development are thought to explain the evolution of humans’ exceptionally slow and protracted childhood growth; however, the costs of the human brain during development are unknown. We used existing PET and MRI data to calculate brain glucose use from birth to adulthood. We find that the brain’s metabolic requirements peak in childhood, when it uses glucose at a rate equivalent to 66% of the body’s resting metabolism and 43% of the body’s daily energy requirement, and that brain glucose demand relates inversely to body growth from infancy to puberty. Our findings support the hypothesis that the unusually high costs of human brain development require a compensatory slowing of childhood body growth.
Notes:
Folksonomies: evolution brain development
Taxonomies:
/health and fitness (0.358478)
/health and fitness/disease (0.307592)
/family and parenting/children (0.263076)
Keywords:
protracted childhood growth (0.960217 (negative:-0.462484)), brain glucose demand (0.842558 (negative:-0.267417)), unusually high costs (0.814878 (positive:0.547081)), body growth (0.796320 (positive:0.279664)), daily energy requirement (0.739441 (neutral:0.000000)), childhood body growth (0.723638 (positive:0.547081)), human brain development (0.639026 (positive:0.547081)), metabolic costs (0.605286 (neutral:0.000000)), compensatory slowing (0.518909 (positive:0.547081)), metabolic requirements (0.464033 (neutral:0.000000)), MRI data (0.435817 (positive:0.415003)), Brain Growth (0.400422 (neutral:0.000000))
Entities:
43%:Quantity (0.010000 (neutral:0.000000)), 66%:Quantity (0.010000 (neutral:0.000000))
Concepts:
Nervous system (0.951380): dbpedia | freebase | opencyc
Human brain (0.947320): dbpedia | freebase
Human (0.943642): dbpedia | freebase | opencyc
Brain (0.880828): dbpedia | freebase | opencyc
Psychology (0.670857): dbpedia | freebase | opencyc
Evolution (0.659947): dbpedia | freebase | opencyc
Cerebellum (0.636428): dbpedia | freebase | opencyc