June 2026: Out now in PNAS:
We (kudos to Mahnaz!) present a new metabolism-weighted brain connectome that incorporates each region’s energy expenditure into the mapping of brain connectivity.
Summary: The regions of the brain exhibit unequal energy consumption. Specifically, areas associated with functions such as memory and attention are metabolic hotspots of intense neural activity. Yet brain connectivity analyses ignore this energetic dimension, treating all regions as functionally equivalent. Using simultaneous positron emission tomography (PET)-MRI in healthy volunteers, we show that energetically most active hubs anchor networks for complex cognition, exhibit molecular signatures of intense synaptic activity, and are disproportionately vulnerable to Alzheimer’s disease. These findings establish a unifying principle: brain regions most essential for cognition bear the greatest metabolic burden, and this cost may underlie their susceptibility to neurodegeneration.
Funded by: ERC
