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Cognitive Energy Budgeting

Meaning

Cognitive energy budgeting is the neurobiological process of allocating the finite metabolic resources, primarily glucose and ketones, to various competing cognitive processes, such as attention, working memory, and decision-making. The prefrontal cortex, the brain’s primary executive center, demands a disproportionately large and steady supply of adenosine triphosphate (ATP) to maintain its high rate of neural firing. Effective budgeting ensures that high-priority, complex tasks receive sufficient energy substrate, while lower-priority processes are down-regulated or deferred. Impaired energy budgeting, often linked to insulin resistance or mitochondrial dysfunction, manifests clinically as mental fatigue and reduced executive function.