Brains consume metabolic energy to process information, but also to store memories. The energy required for memory formation can be substantial, for instance in fruit flies memory formation leads to a shorter lifespan upon subsequent starvation (Mery and Kawecki, 2005). Here we estimate that the energy required corresponds to about 10mJ/bit and compare this to biophysical estimates as well as energy requirements in computer hardware. We conclude that biological memory storage is expensive, but the reason behind it is not known.

翻译：大脑消耗代谢能量不仅用于信息处理，也用于记忆存储。记忆形成所需的能量可能相当可观，例如在果蝇中，记忆形成会导致后续饥饿状态下寿命缩短（Mery 和 Kawecki，2005）。本文估算出记忆形成所需的能量约为10mJ/比特，并将其与生物物理估算值及计算机硬件的能量需求进行比较。我们得出结论：生物记忆存储的成本高昂，但其背后的原因尚不明确。