Energy Demand of the Human Fetal Brain

The baby’s brain consumes most of the produced energy. Even at 1 year of age, an infant’s brain uses 53% of the energy in the body. Therefore, I will explain in a detailed manner how this large energy demand is supplied. Why does a newborn human’s brain consume 74% of the energy produced in the whole body? The human infant’s brain receives huge information, especially visual information, just after birth. It is a situation called excessive input. Especially, apes and birds of prey with binocular vision have large visual cortexes in the neocortex and special functions of constructing three-dimensional visions from large visual information on the plane coming from the eyeballs. This tendency is especially noticeable in humans. A baby’s brain is simultaneously processing huge visual information and performing synaptic rearrangement. (Behind that cute look, it is surprising that the baby’s brain is steadily performing the work like a supercomputer.)