Resource Allocation in the Brain

Abstract

When an individual performs several tasks simultaneously, processing resources must be allocated to different brain systems to produce energy for neurons to fire. Following the evidence from neuroscience, we model the brain as an organization in which a coordinator allocates limited resources to the brain systems responsible for the different tasks. Systems are privately informed about the amount of resources necessary to perform their task and compete to obtain the resources. The coordinator arbitrates the demands while satisfying the resource constraint. We show that the optimal mechanism is to impose to each system with privately known needs a cap in resources that depends negatively on the amount of resources requested by the other system. This allocation can be implemented using a biologically plausible mechanism. Finally, we provide some implications of our theory: (i) performance is inversely related to the difficulty of the task and can be flawless for sufficiently simple tasks, (ii) the dynamic allocation rule exhibits inertia (current allocations are increasing in past needs), and (iii) different cognitive tasks are performed by different systems only if the tasks are sufficiently important.

How can neuroscience inform economics?

“…There are now many papers using neural data to address just such a question [44,45 ]. A second example is the recent work on the choice processes that emerge from optimal resource allocation in the brain [46,47]. These models assume that a central co-ordinator must allocate resources between brain systems that are responsible for different tasks.…”

Neurocognitive consequences of hand augmentation

“…We used computational simulations to explore the feasibility of multiple potential plasticity mechanisms that could trigger the observed fMRI results (reduction in pairwise distances between fingers; Supplementary Figure S2). First, based on information processing theories (34,35), the integration of a new additional finger into the hand's motor control could impinge on the existing representation of the biological fingers. Second, the change in finger coordination, observed during training, may also lead to abrupt changes in excitability profiles that can trigger homeostatic plasticity mechanisms and promote increased tonic, and relatively wide-spread inhibition (36).…”

A dynamic model of dissonance reduction in a modular mind.

“…The hierarchical and modular structure described in Minsky (1986), Oatley (1986), and Blakeslee (2005) are also in line with our model. More recently, Alonso, Brocas, and Carillo (2011) propose a principal-agent model of brain where a coordinator (i.e., a principal) allocates limited resources (e.g., oxygen, glucose) to brain systems responsible for different tasks. The principal in our model has a higher position in the hierarchy compared to the agents and deals with a more complex problem of optimal task assignment.…”