ArticleFrontiers in computational neuroscience2020
Upper Limit on the Thermodynamic Information Content of an Action Potential.
Article in Frontiers in computational neuroscience, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 6 papers.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Who cites it
6 citing papers in PubMed.
- EMI-EDU: reframing learning and education through energy, mass and information.Frontiers in human neuroscience · 2026Article
- The QBIT Theory of Consciousness: Information, Correlation, and Coherence.Integrative psychological & behavioral science · 2024Article
- Short-term plasticity as 'energetic memory' of ion channel components of action potential.Royal Society open science · 2024Article
- How the Brain Becomes the Mind: Can Thermodynamics Explain the Emergence and Nature of Emotions?Entropy (Basel, Switzerland) · 2022Article
- Percolation may explain efficiency, robustness, and economy of the brain.Network neuroscience (Cambridge, Mass.) · 2022Article
- A Quick and Easy Way to Estimate Entropy and Mutual Information for Neuroscience.Frontiers in neuroinformatics · 2021Article
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Authors and funding
1 author.
Funding
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Abstract
In computational neuroscience, spiking neurons are often analyzed as computing devices that register bits of information, with each action potential carrying at most one bit of Shannon entropy. Here, I question this interpretation by using Landauer's principle to estimate an upper limit for the quantity of thermodynamic information that can be processed within a single action potential in a typical mammalian neuron. A straightforward calculation shows that an action potential in a typical mammalian cortical pyramidal cell can process up to approximately 3.4 · 10
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