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Metabolic costs and evolutionary implications of
human brain development
Christopher W. Kuzawaa,b,1, Harry T. Chuganic,d,e, Lawrence I. Grossmanf, Leonard Lipoviche,f, Otto Muzikd,
Patrick R. Hofg, Derek E. Wildmanf,h,i, Chet C. Sherwoodj, William R. Leonarda, and Nicholas Langek,l
a
Department of Anthropology, bInstitute for Policy Research, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL 60208; cPositron Emission Tomography Center, Children’s
Hospital of Michigan, Detroit, MI 48201; dDepartment of Pediatrics, eDepartment of Neurology, and fCenter for Molecular Medicine and Genetics, Wayne
State University School of Medicine, Detroit, MI 48201; gFishberg Department of Neuroscience and Friedman Brain Institute, Icahn School of Medicine at
Mount Sinai, New York, NY 10029; hInstitute of Genomic Biology, iDepartment of Molecular and Integrative Physiology, University of Illinois, Urbana, IL
61801; jDepartment of Anthropology, The George Washington University, Washington, DC 20052; and kDepartment of Psychiatry and lDepartment of
Biostatistics, Harvard University and McLean Hospital, Cambridge, MA 02138

Edited* by Peter T. Ellison, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, and approved July 25, 2014 (received for review December 28, 2013)

The high energetic costs of human brain development have been
hypothesized to explain distinctive human traits, including exceptionally slow and protracted preadult growth. Although widely
assumed to constrain life-history evolution, the metabolic requirements of the growing human brain are unknown. We combined
previously collected PET and MRI data to calculate the human
brain’s glucose use from birth to adulthood, which we compare
with body growth rate. We evaluate the strength of brain–body
metabolic trade-offs using the ratios of brain glucose uptake to
the body’s resting metabolic rate (RMR) and daily energy requirements (DER) expressed in glucose-gram equivalents (glucosermr%
and glucoseder%). We find that glucosermr% and glucoseder% do not
peak at birth (52.5% and 59.8% of RMR, or 35.4% and 38.7% of
DER, for males and females, respectively), when relative brain size
is largest, but rather in childhood (66.3% and 65.0% of RMR and
43.3% and 43.8% of DER). Body-weight growth (dw/dt) and both
glucosermr% and glucoseder% are strongly, inversely related: soon
after birth, increases in brain glucose demand are accompanied by
proportionate decreases in dw/dt. Ages of peak brain glucose demand and lowest dw/dt co-occur and subsequent developmental
declines in brain metabolism are matched by proportionate increases
in dw/dt until puberty. The finding that human brain glucose
demands peak during childhood, and evidence that brain metabolism and body growth rate covary inversely across development,
support the hypothesis that the high costs of human brain development require compensatory slowing of body growth rate.
neuroimaging
anthropology

idea notes the importance of complex extractive techniques to
human foraging success, and proposes that humans have a long
preadult stage to facilitate mastery of these skills (2).
Other hypotheses have focused on energetic trade-offs and
viewed slowed growth as compensation for the brain’s high energetic needs (1, 14–19). Because of its large size, the human brain
has unusually high energy costs (15, 20, 21), which are particularly
elevated compared with the body’s metabolic budget early in the
life cycle (18, 22). It has been estimated that the human brain
accounts for between 44% and 87% of resting metabolic rate
(RMR) during infancy, childhood, and adolescence (23–25), suggesting strong trade-offs with other functions. The human brain’s
demand for energy is sufficiently high during these periods that it
could require that the body expend less on growth, thus slowing
and prolonging the preadult period (1, 14–18, 26). This reasoning
leads to the expectation that the ages of slowest body growth
will coincide developmentally with peak brain metabolic needs.
Although the energetic trade-off concept is widely cited, the
ability to test it against alternative hypotheses (2, 5, 10, 11) has
been hampered by limitations of prior measures of brain metabolism during human growth. Direct estimates of total brain
energy use have been based upon the nitrous oxide (N2O)
method, which quantifies brain oxygen consumption and estimates energy expenditure based on an assumption that glucose
exclusively enters oxidative phosphorylation (24). However,
Significance

| diabetes | human evolution | neuronal plasticity |

The metabolic costs of brain development are thought to explain the evolution of humans’ exceptionally slow and protracted childhood growth; however, the costs of the human
brain during development are unknown. We used existing PET
and MRI data to calculate brain glucose use from birth to
adulthood. We find that the brain’s metabolic requirements
peak in childhood, when it uses glucose at a rate equivalent to
66% of the body’s resting metabolism and 43% of the body’s
daily energy requirement, and that brain glucose demand
relates inversely to body growth from infancy to puberty. Our
findings support the hypothesis that the unusually high costs
of human brain development require a compensatory slowing
of childhood body growth.

A

prolonged period of childhood and juvenile growth is a defining feature of human life history (1–3). Compared with
other great apes, human offspring are weaned early, leading to
an extended period of dependence on procured resources rather
than breast milk (1, 4). Although this unique human reproductive pattern is viewed as shortening the interbirth interval and
thus increasing fertility (5, 6), what is less clear is why humans
also grow so slowly during childhood. Although most primates
grow slower than other mammals (7), human childhood and juvenile growth stand out as unusually slow even by primate and
great ape standards, during which it proceeds at a pace more
typical of reptiles than of mammals (8, 9). In humans, a sizeable
percentage of preadult growth is deferred until the pubertal
growth spurt, when growth rate markedly increases and adult size
is achieved (1).
Many hypotheses have been proposed to explain this slow and
prolonged preadult life-stage, with most pointing to the extra
time and energy required for human learning and brain development (5, 10–12). It has long been assumed that human
cultural practices are sufficiently complex that they take many
years to learn, which could have selected for a slowing down and
extension of preadult development (13). A recent variant of this
13010–13015 | PNAS | September 9, 2014 | vol. 111 | no. 36

Author contributions: C.W.K., D.E.W., C.C.S., W.R.L., and N.L. designed research; H.T.C.
performed research; C.W.K., O.M., W.R.L., and N.L. analyzed data; and C.W.K., H.T.C., L.I.G.,
L.L., O.M., P.R.H., D.E.W., C.C.S., W.R.L., and N.L. wrote the paper.
The authors declare no conflict of interest.
*This Direct Submission article had a prearranged editor.
Freely available online through the PNAS open access option.
Data deposition: The MRI data are available through the National Institutes of Health
Brain Development Cooperative Group, www.pediatricmri.nih.gov.
1

To whom correspondence should be addressed. Email: kuzawa@northwestern.edu.

This article contains supporting information online at www.pnas.org/lookup/suppl/doi:10.
1073/pnas.1323099111/-/DCSupplemental.

www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.1323099111

Kuzawa et al.

To evaluate developmental changes in the strength of substrate competition between the brain and body, we next calculated the body’s RMR and DER by entering the body weights
(SI Appendix, Fig. S3) of the individuals for whom brain weights
were obtained (37) into age- and sex-specific predictive equations (38). To allow direct comparison with brain glucose uptake,
RMR (SI Appendix, Fig. S4) and DER (SI Appendix, Fig. S5)
were first converted to grams of glucose equivalents (1 g glucose =
3.72 kcal of energy expenditure) (39). We expressed metabolic
competition between brain and body as glucosermr% and glucoseder%,
calculated as the ratios between brain glucose uptake and daily
glucose-gram equivalent RMR or DER, respectively. These ratios do not indicate the percent of RMR or DER used by the
brain because some brain glucose uptake (the numerator) is not
used in energy production (28). Instead, glucosermr% and glucoseder% can be interpreted as the fraction of the body’s RMR or
DER that could be met by the quantity of glucose consumed by
the brain (see SI Appendix, SI Materials and Methods for details).
In males and females, respectively, total brain glucose uptake is
the equivalent of 52.5% and 59.8% of RMR at birth, drops to
37.5 and 40.8% of RMR in the first half-year, then rises to
a lifetime peak of 66.3% and 65.0% of RMR by 4.2–4.4 y (Fig.
1 C and D and SI Appendix, Fig. S6). Although the brain
accounted for a smaller fraction of DER, the pattern of glucose
consumption relative to DER was very similar to that for RMR
(Fig. 1 C and D): glucoseder% accounted for the equivalent of
35.4% and 38.7% of DER at birth, declined to 24.7% and 26.8%
by 7 mo, before rising to peak levels of 43.3% at 3.8 y (males)
and 43.8% at 4 y (females). Adult glucosermr% was 19.1% and
24.0% whereas glucoseder% was 10.9% and 15.0% in males and
females, respectively.
Finally, we compared age changes in glucosermr% and glucoseder% with body-weight growth velocity, calculated as the
derivative (dw/dt) of the function linking body weight with age.
Plotting unitless SD scores of glucosermr% and dw/dt against age
reveals opposing age trends in the two measures starting at
6 mo of age (Fig. 2 A and B). When SD scores of dw/dt are
plotted against those of glucosermr% (Fig. 2 C and D), the first
6 mo are characterized by a fast but decelerating rate of bodyweight growth and a parallel reduction in glucosermr%. Starting
at 6 mo, each increase in glucosermr% is matched by a proportionate
decrease in dw/dt, with peak glucosermr% and the trough of dw/dt cooccurring. After the childhood peak in brain glucose demands, each
subsequent age-related decline in glucosermr% is accompanied by
a proportionate increase in dw/dt until onset of pubertal weight gain
PNAS | September 9, 2014 | vol. 111 | no. 36 | 13011

NEUROSCIENCE

Results
We first fit continuous functions to point estimates, inclusive of
gray and white matter, of glucose uptake for the cerebrum,
brainstem, and cerebellum in 29 individuals (32) ranging in age
from birth to late adolescence (SI Appendix, Fig. S1). Regional
glucose uptake rates were then multiplied by regional brain
weights to obtain the daily grams of glucose consumed by the
entire brain in both oxidative metabolism and aerobic glycolysis
(for details, see Materials and Methods). Daily glucose use by the
brain peaks at 5.2 y of age at 167.0 g/d and 146.1 g/d in males and
females, respectively. These values represent 1.88- and 1.82-times
the daily glucose use of the brain in adulthood (Fig. 1 A and B
and SI Appendix, Fig. S2), despite the fact that body size is more
than three-times as large in the adult.

Fig. 1. Glucose use of the human brain by age. (A) Grams per day in males.
(B) Grams per day in females; dashed horizontal line is adult value (A and B).
(C) Glucosermr% (solid line) and glucoseder% (dashed line) in males. (D) Glucosermr%
(solid line) and glucoseder% (dashed line) in females.

ANTHROPOLOGY

recent work shows that the rate of glucose uptake exceeds oxygen consumption in the brain (27), with up to 30% of brain
glucose not entering oxidative phosphorylation during childhood
(28). This additional use of glucose, in aerobic glycolysis, contributes to protein synthesis associated with synaptic growth and
other important developmental functions (28–30), yet is not
reflected in measures of oxygen consumption like N2O, which
therefore underestimate total brain glucose uptake and use.
Although past work points to high metabolic requirements of
the growing human brain, data are available for only a small
number of individuals of restricted age range, which limits their
utility for evaluating trade-offs between brain metabolism and
body growth during development. The only previous attempt to
derive a growth curve for brain metabolism that we are aware of
assumed that the mass-specific metabolic rate of the brain, measured using the N2O method (24), is stable at adult-like levels
across development (25, 31). Using this method, it was estimated
that the brain accounts for 87% of RMR at birth, and that this
fraction then steadily declines as the brain-to-body mass ratio
decreases with age (25). This finding, if correct, would not support
the hypothesis that ages of slowest body growth, in childhood,
coincide with ages of peak brain metabolic requirements.
In contrast with the assumption that the per-gram brain metabolic rate is stable with age, PET studies show that glucose uptake
in the cerebral cortex is more than twice as high during early- to
midchildhood than in adulthood (32). This dynamism reflects the
additional energetic costs associated with overproliferation of
neuronal processes and synapses before activity-dependent pruning
in late childhood and adolescence (33, 34), along with aerobic
glycolysis, which is thought to rise in support of synaptic growth
(27–29). In contrast, at birth, before extensive postnatal synaptic
proliferation and the corresponding rise in aerobic glycolysis,
PET-derived glucose uptake is 20–30% lower than in adults (32).
Although past PET studies provide insights into the dynamics of
glucose use at various stages of development, these studies only
report point estimates in specific brain structures (32, 35), thus
leaving the costs of the entire human brain during development—
and potential evolutionary trade-offs with body growth—uncertain.
To quantify the metabolic costs of the human brain, in this study
we used a unique, previously collected age series of PET measures
of brain glucose uptake spanning birth to adulthood (32), along
with existing MRI volumetric data (36), to calculate the brain’s
total glucose use from birth to adulthood, which we compare with
body growth rate. We estimate total brain glucose uptake by age
(inclusive of all oxidative and nonoxidative functions), which we
compare with two measures of whole-body energy expenditure:
RMR, reflecting maintenance functions only, and daily energy
requirements (DER), reflecting the combination of maintenance,
activity, and growth. We hypothesized that ages of peak substrate
competition (i.e., competition for glucose) between brain and
body would be aligned developmentally with the age of slowest
childhood body growth, and more generally that growth rate and
brain glucose use would covary inversely during development, as is
predicted by the concept of a trade-off between brain metabolism
and body growth in human life-history evolution.

Fig. 2. Glucosermr% and body-weight growth rate. Glucosermr% and weight
velocities plotted as SD scores to allow unitless comparison. (A) Glucosermr%
(red dots) and dw/dt (blue dots) by age in males. (B) Glucosermr% (red dots)
and dw/dt (blue dots) by age in females. (C) Weight velocity vs. glucosermr%
in males. (D) Weight velocity vs. glucosermr% in females. For reference, orange numbers indicate ages at yearly intervals (C and D).

(∼12–13 y in males and ∼9–10 y in females), after which slower
growth is accompanied by declining glucosermr% as both body size
and brain metabolism approach adult levels. Very similar results
were obtained when brain glucose was evaluated in relation to DER
(Fig. 3). For reference, predicted values of key variables are reported
for males and females in SI Appendix, Tables S1 and S2, respectively.
Discussion
Our findings agree with past estimates indicating that the brain
dominates the body’s metabolism during early life (31). However, our PET-based calculations reveal that the magnitude of
brain glucose uptake, both in absolute terms and relative to the
body’s metabolic budget, does not peak at birth but rather in
childhood, when the glucose used by the brain comprises the
equivalent of 66% of the body’s RMR, and roughly 43% of total
expenditure. These findings are in broad agreement with past
clinical work showing that the body’s mass-specific glucose production rates are highest in childhood, and tightly linked with the
brain’s metabolic needs (40). Whereas past attempts to quantify
the contribution of the brain to the body’s metabolic expenditure
suggested that the brain accounted for a continuously decreasing
fraction of RMR as the brain-to-body weight ratio declined with
age (25, 31), we find a more complex pattern of substrate tradeoff. Both glucosermr% and glucoseder% decline in the first halfyear as a fast but decelerating pace of body growth established in
utero initially outpaces postnatal increases in brain metabolism.
Beginning around 6 mo, increases in relative glucose use are
matched by proportionate decreases in weight growth, whereas
ages of declining brain glucose uptake in late childhood and early
adolescence are accompanied by proportionate increases in
weight growth. The relationships that we document between age
changes in brain glucose demands and body-weight growth rate
are particularly striking in males, who maintain these inverse
linear trends despite experiencing threefold changes in brain
glucose demand and body growth rate between 6 mo and 13 y of
age. In females, an earlier onset of pubertal weight gain leads to
earlier deviations from similar linear inverse relationships.
Our results shed light on several unique features of human
life-history evolution. The long period of slow human childhood
and juvenile growth has alternately been viewed as, among other
13012 | www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.1323099111

hypotheses, necessary for learning of complex foraging skills (2),
as a by-product of selection for lifespan extension (5), as allowing
greater activity devoted to subsistence tasks that contribute to
the family’s pooled energy budget (10), as reducing the dietary
burden on human mothers raising multiple overlapping dependent offspring (11), or as compensation for high brain energy
needs (1, 14–18). Our finding of a strong, inverse relationship
between developmental changes in the brain’s glucose uptake
and body-weight growth rate supports the last hypothesis. It is
notable that the increase in body growth rate at puberty—which
is unusually pronounced in humans—is deferred to an age when
brain glucose uptake is greatly reduced (1, 26, 41). We interpret
our finding of an inverse relationship between the brain’s demand for glucose and body-weight growth rate as support for the
hypothesis that human brain development is sufficiently costly to
require a compensatory reduction in expenditure on body
growth, thus helping explain our unusually slow rate of childhood
growth and resultant delay in attainment of adult size and sexual
maturity compared with other closely related great apes.
The childhood peak in brain glucose uptake is greatest in the
cerebrum, and less pronounced in the brainstem and cerebellum
(32). These patterns suggest that peak brain glucose uptake
during childhood reflects neuronal plasticity in the cerebral
cortex (32), which involves overproliferation of energetically
costly dendritic arbors and synapses before activity-dependent
pruning (33, 34). Recent work shows that glucose uptake outpaces oxygen use in the human brain, and that this imbalance
also peaks at the age of greatest glucose uptake in childhood,
pointing to an important role of aerobic glycolysis in support of
synaptic proliferation and growth (28, 30). Collectively, this large
increase in glucose uptake corresponds closely with the age of
slowest body-weight growth.
Although we find that body growth rate and brain substrate use
covary inversely during human development, pointing to a likely
trade-off between these functions, our findings lead to the more
general prediction that other costly somatic or physiological
expenditures will also be reduced at this age to free up energy and
substrate to support brain development. Consistent with this
perspective, recent studies of total energy expenditure (TEE)
show that typical physical activity levels (PAL = TEE/RMR) for

Fig. 3. Glucoseder% and body-weight growth rate. Glucoseder% and weight
velocities plotted as SD scores to allow unitless comparison. (A) Glucoseder%
(red dots) and dw/dt (blue dots) by age in males. (B) Glucoseder% (red dots)
and dw/dt (blue dots) by age in females. (C) Weight velocity vs. glucoseder%
in males. (D) Weight velocity vs. glucoseder% in females. For reference,
orange numbers indicate ages at yearly intervals (C and D).

Kuzawa et al.

Kuzawa et al.

PNAS | September 9, 2014 | vol. 111 | no. 36 | 13013

NEUROSCIENCE

from the fossil record, the ontogeny of brain metabolism that
we document provides clues into the ecological strategies that
were likely required for the modern human pattern of brain
development to evolve. It has been noted that the high and inflexible glucose requirements of the developing human brain
make it susceptible to impairment from nutritional shortfall (18).
Despite this finding, we find that peak brain glucose uptake
occurs after the age of complete weaning from breast milk in
most human societies (4), and when the energetic buffer of body
fat stores are near their lifetime nadir (18). In light of this
finding, it seems likely that the evolution of human encephalization required cultural or social strategies to buffer the energy
intake of dependent offspring. Rudimentary hunting and gathering economies appeared with the emergence of the genus
Homo and are believed to have been important in supporting
early brain expansion (49–51). A shift to calorically dense and
easily digested foods, and greater food sharing among social
groups, would have increased the nutritional quality and stability
of the diet (14, 15, 20). Although direct evidence for childcare
strategies are not preserved in the fossil record, recent comparative analyses suggest that cooperative care in raising and
provisioning young was likely important in achieving levels of
encephalization seen in Homo sapiens (52, 53). A system in
which extended social networks provisioned food for children,
combined with shifts to calorically dense and easily digested
foods procured through hunting (14, 15), would have allowed the
costs of human brain development to be widely distributed and
also buffered against shortfall. This shift in the social context of
human child rearing, occurring together with a protracted postnatal development of cortical connectivity (54, 55), likely created
new opportunities for imitative learning and cumulative, intergenerational development of cultural traditions to become
central features of the human adaptive complex (56, 57).
Our results also highlight underappreciated implications of the
high glucose requirements of the human brain for medicine and
public health. Diabetes is a condition in which tissues (primarily
muscle) fail to respond appropriately to insulin, thus reducing
glucose uptake. Although an important precursor to type 2 diabetes, peripheral insulin resistance is also effective at shunting
scarce glucose to high-demand tissues or organs, such as to the
fetus during the mild diabetes of pregnancy (58), or to the brain
during the insulin-resistance triggered by stress (59). Changes in
insulin secretion are believed to help coordinate glucose delivery
to the brain as brain size and energy requirements change during
development (60, 61). The present finding that the brain’s requirement for glucose peaks after weaning, at an age when body
fat stores are minimal (18), points to strong selection on physiologic mechanisms to redirect glucose delivery to the brain
during nutritional stress. Studies report interactions between
fetal undernutrition or small birth size and childhood weight gain
as predictors of diabetes risk, suggesting an important role for
childhood energetics and substrate availability in diabetes development (62, 63). Although normative data on developmental
changes in insulin sensitivity during child development are
lacking (64), our findings lead to the prediction that facultative
buffering of substrate supply to the brain (e.g., insulin resistance
induced acutely by stress) will be prominent at 4–5 y of age (59).
Measuring brain metabolism in living children poses unique
challenges that warrant discussion. For ethical reasons, there is
no study that includes PET and MRI data in the same healthy
individuals spanning birth to adulthood. Consequently, we used
brain volumetrics and glucose uptake rates obtained from two
different United States samples deemed developmentally normal
before screening (MRI) or after clinical assessments for possible
abnormalities turned up negative (PET) (see Materials and
Methods for more details). An additional limitation is that our
analyses are based on cross-sectional brain and body-weight data,
which pool fast- and slow-maturing individuals; this pooling can
attenuate the apparent magnitude of the pubertal growth spurt
while also obscuring the variable timings of its onset (65). Analytic techniques that account for variation in maturational tempo,

ANTHROPOLOGY

preschool age children (3–5 y) are lower than in later childhood
and adolescence (38, 39, 42). These findings suggest that, like the
body’s very low expenditure on somatic growth, activity-related
(discretionary) expenditure during human development is also
comparatively low at ages of peak brain metabolic demand.
Pontzer et al. (43) recently showed that humans and other
primates have reduced TEEs for their body sizes, despite having
basal metabolic rates (BMRs) consistent with those of other
mammals. The authors conclude that a reduced rate of energy
throughput helps explain some shared features of primate life
histories, including slower growth compared with other mammals. Pontzer et al. speculate that high brain energy needs might
account for the fact that primate BMRs are not similarly reduced, but they also note extensive life-history variation among
primates that traces to differences in allocation priorities. Our
findings complement these data and implicate the high energy
and substrate requirements of the brain, especially during the
ages of most rapid development and learning, as a likely cause of
life-history differences between humans and other closely related
primates, such as chimpanzees.
Because the costs of neocortical synaptic growth and metabolism
comprise a major endpoint for glucose in the brain, examination of
the generalizability of the brain energetics–body growth trade-off
hypothesis can be informed by data on postnatal synaptogenesis in
other primates, which are available for humans, chimpanzees, and
macaques. In all three species neocortical synapse densities are
doubled during growth, compared with densities at birth. In macaques the period of peak synaptic density occurs during infancy,
whereas in humans and chimpanzees peak synaptic densities take
place during the midjuvenile or (in humans) childhood period (44).
Brain energetics are thus not likely to impose a strong constraint on
later juvenile body growth in macaques, whereas in chimpanzees
growth is predicted to be slowed in the juvenile period, but to
a lesser degree than in humans because of their smaller brains and
corresponding lower brain metabolic needs (22). Comparative
growth data support this prediction (41), showing that, unlike
humans, chimpanzees and other great apes do not display marked
declines in weight velocities after infancy. Additionally, humans are
not distinct in having a “growth spurt” but in delaying it until after
a long period of slow childhood growth (41).
Our findings also lead to the prediction that a slowing of
preadult growth and increase in brain metabolism coevolved in
the course of human evolution. Estimates of body growth from
fragmentary and limited fossil hominin remains can be complicated; nonetheless, current data on hominin dental emergence,
enamel growth rate, and skeletal growth suggest that a more
extended period between weaning and sexual maturity began to
appear at least 1.5 million y ago in Homo erectus (45). Data on
dental eruption point to coevolution between brain expansion
and maturational delay (45, 46), with a fully modern pattern of
delayed physical growth not emerging until the origin of anatomically modern humans (47, 48). Although these findings are
generally consistent with the hypothesis that brain expansion has
set the pace for changes in body-size growth in the hominin
lineage, our results underscore the challenges of interpreting the
strength of metabolic trade-offs related to human brain evolution from data on the cranial capacity of fossils alone (e.g., ref.
14). In the modern human sample evaluated here, an average
gram of brain tissue at 4 y uses more than 2.5-times the glucose of
a gram of brain at birth (see data in SI Appendix, Tables S1 and
S2). Absolute brain glucose requirements peak at ∼5 y, several
years before final brain size is achieved, and adult brain glucose
requirements are only half those at age 5 y. This uncoupling of the
energetic requirements of the brain from brain size reflects developmental dynamics in substrate-intensive processes related to
neural plasticity and learning, which are not preserved in fossil
samples. In this context, it is notable that, despite having similar
cranial capacities, dental eruption data suggest that Neanderthals
grew more rapidly than modern humans (48).
Although it is not possible to precisely evaluate the coevolution
between brain metabolic requirements and slowing of body growth

such as centering of individual growth curves on maturational
indices rather than chronological age (65), would require repeat
PET imaging in healthy individuals, which, as noted, is not ethical.
The age of the trough in body-weight growth rate estimated from
the cross-sectional data used here is consistent with mixedlongitudinal reference data showing lowest rates of weight gain
from 4 to 4.5 y (66), and the latest World Health Organization
(WHO) report on human energy requirements similarly finds that
caloric needs for body growth are lowest at 4–5 y (38). Importantly, the cross-sectional body weights that we use to calculate
RMR and the brain masses used to calculate brain glucose uptake
were obtained from the same individuals, suggesting that our
approach provides a useful basis for evaluating the changing relationship between brain metabolism and body size across a large
sample varying widely in age and developmental stage.
In sum, we find that the rate of glucose uptake by the human
brain, in both absolute terms and relative to the body’s metabolic
expenditure, does not peak at birth, when the size of the brain
relative to the body is largest, but in childhood, when synaptic
densities and related metabolic processes are maximal. These
new estimates show that the ages when substrate trade-offs between the brain and body are greatest in humans coincide developmentally with the ages of slowest childhood body-weight
growth, and that age-related changes in relative brain glucose
needs and body-weight gain are tightly, inversely related from
early infancy until puberty. These findings thus provide rare
empirical support for the hypothesis that humans evolved a
protracted period of slow preadult growth to compensate for the
unusually high metabolic costs of brain development underlying
the extraordinary human capacity for cultural learning.
Materials and Methods
PET Procedure. As described elsewhere (32, 67), glucose uptake was measured
by one of the authors (H.T.C.) using PET in 36 individuals, including 7 healthy
young adult volunteers (ages 19–30 y; mean 24.4 y; five males, two females)
and 29 children (age range: birth to 15.5 y). The lCMRGlc values in the
29 children were compared with those of the seven healthy young adult
volunteers, whose detailed neurological and psychological examinations disclosed no abnormalities. Written informed consent for the PET procedures was
obtained directly from adult participants, and for minors, from parents, with
institutional review board oversight by the University of California at Los
Angeles Human Subject Protection Committee. Additional details of the PET
protocol and sample have been described previously (32) and are discussed
in the SI Appendix, SI Methods and Materials.
Continuous functions were fit separately to glucose uptake from the cerebrum, brainstem, and cerebellum (SI Appendix, Fig. S1). We first evaluated
the fit of quadratic and cubic polynomial models using the Akaike Information Criterion (AIC). This process yielded quadratic models as best fitting for cerebellum and brainstem glucose uptake. Glucose uptake in the
cerebrum followed a more complex age trend, which we modeled using
a cubic spline function. Using the mkspline statistic in Stata v.11, we varied
the number of knots, which were placed at age quantiles, and used the AIC
to evaluate overall goodness-of-fit (68), yielding a 3-knot curve. Predicted
values were calculated at 0.2-y intervals to allow the PET data to be combined with volumetric data and to calculate derived variables.
Volumetric Brain MRI Data. Total and regional brain volumes for 402 healthy
males and females 4.6–20 y of age were obtained from the database
established by the National Institutes of Health MRI Study of Normal Brain
Development (36), of which one of us (N.L.) is an affiliate. Cerebrum was
defined as whole-brain volume excluding the latter two structures. Longitudinal mixed-effects growth curve models were fit to these data, using the
AIC for model selection, to yield the estimated regional volumes used here,
with volumes predicted at 0.2-y increments. Additional details of the brain
volumetry in this sample are described elsewhere (36) and in the SI Appendix, SI Materials and Methods.
We augmented the longitudinal MRI series with data from published and
unpublished MRI studies that included total brain volume and volumes of the
cerebrum, cerebellum, and brainstem in normal healthy subjects aged birth
to 4.6 y (SI Appendix, Table S3). Because the MRI estimates before and after
4.6 y of age were derived from different populations with different body
and brain sizes, it was not possible to splice absolute brain-region volumes to
form single birth–adulthood growth curves. We therefore converted brain

13014 | www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.1323099111

region volumetric data from the various studies to regional weights [specific
gravities: cerebrum 1.0335; brainstem 1.0277; cerebellum 1.0375 (69)], allowing
calculation of the percentage of totally brain weight (TBW) accounted for by
cerebrum, cerebellum, and brainstem (SI Appendix, Fig. S7), which were then
multiplied by brain weights from the Dekaban and Sadowsky (37) brain-weight
series spanning birth to adulthood. This study reports brain weights from autopsy records limited to the subset in which the brain was weighed soon after
death and there was no indication of brain pathology, growth disruption, or
gross overweight (n = 1,004 from birth to 15 y). To our knowledge, this highly
cited data series is the only one available that reports brain and body weights
from the same individuals, and that spans birth to adulthood. Using these data,
we first modeled TBW with Gompertz and polynomial functions (spliced at
3.6 and 2.6 y in males and females, respectively) (SI Appendix, Fig. S8), which
were multiplied by percent TBW for each region, yielding age-specific estimates
of cerebral, cerebellar, and brainstem weights normalized to the same study
sample (SI Appendix, Fig. S9).
Calculation of Total Brain Glucose Use. Glucose use by the cerebrum, cerebellum,
and brainstem were calculated on 0.2-y intervals from the regional PET functions (μmol/min per 100 g), which were multiplied by cerebrum, cerebellum,
and brainstem weights. Global brain glucose use was calculated as the sum of
cerebral, cerebellar, and brainstem glucose use (SI Appendix, Fig. S2).
RMR and DER. RMR (reflecting maintenance only) and DER (inclusive of
maintenance, activity, and growth) were estimated from the body weights of
the individuals included in the Dekaban and Sadowsky series (37). Weight
data were first fit with cubic spline functions (SI Appendix, Fig. S3) with
predicted values generated at 0.2-y intervals. We then used the most recent
age- and sex-specific equations from the 2004 WHO recommendations on
human energy requirements (38) to obtain RMR (SI Appendix, Fig. S4) and
DER (SI Appendix, Fig. S5). To allow direct comparison with brain glucose
uptake (only some of which is destined for use as an energy substrate; see
below), we converted RMR and DER to glucose equivalents by multiplying by
the conversion 1 kcal = 0.2688 g of glucose (39).
Calculation of Glucosermr% and Glucoseder%. We quantify the strength of brainbody substrate trade-offs using the ratios glucosermr% and glucoseder%,
calculated as the ratio of brain glucose uptake (grams per day) divided by
the body’s RMR or DER (converted to daily glucose equivalents, assuming
1 kcal RMR or DER requires 0.2688 g glucose) × 100. These ratios may be
interpreted as the percentage of the body’s RMR or DER that could be met
by brain glucose uptake if all brain glucose were converted to energy via
oxidative phosphorylation (see SI Appendix, SI Materials and Methods for
detailed discussion). Because RMR was estimated from WHO age- and sexspecific predictive equations, there were discontinuities at the ages corresponding to changes in the predictive equations (at 3 and 10 y of age)
(SI Appendix, Fig. S4). As a final step, we fit cubic spline functions to the male
and female glucosermr% data (both 11-kn models), yielding continuous
functions that minimized these irregularities (SI Appendix, Fig. S6).
Evaluating Trade-offs Between Brain Substrate Use and Body-Weight Growth.
The derivative of the cubic spline function relating weight to age (dw/dt) was
calculated in STATA and used as an estimate of body-weight growth velocity
in this cross-sectional sample, which was compared with age changes in
glucosermr% and glucoseder%. All variables were first converted to SDscores
to allow unitless comparisons.
Calculating Adult Values. To allow comparison with values at younger ages,
mean body weights and TBW from the 19–21 y age bin in Dekaban and
Sadowsky (37) (n = 17 females and 64 males), PET data from seven adult
healthy volunteers, and MRI volumetry data for 20 y old subjects from the
MRI study (36) were used to derive young adult values of RMR, regional
brain weights, and brain metabolic rates (38). Adult DER was estimated as
adult RMR × a young adult PAL of 1.75 for males and 1.60 for females (38).
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS. We thank William Johnson for providing statistical
advice on cubic spline curve fitting; Kim Hill for providing critical feedback
Yarrow Axford for providing manuscript comments; Paul Aljabar and the
Centre for the Developing Brain (Kings College, London) for providing unpublished brain volume data for healthy newborns; and three anonymous
reviewers for providing critical feedback that strengthened the manuscript.
This study was funded in part by National Science Foundation Grant BCS0827546 (to D.E.W.); National Science Foundation Grant BCS-0827531 (to
C.C.S.); James S. McDonnell Foundation Grant 220020293 (to C.C.S.); and
National Institutes of Health Brain Development Cooperative Group Grants
N01 HD023343, N01 MH090002, N01 NS092314–NS002320 and NS034783.

Kuzawa et al.

Kuzawa et al.

PNAS | September 9, 2014 | vol. 111 | no. 36 | 13015

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