Upper Limit on the Thermodynamic Information Content of an Action Potential

In computational neuroscience, spiking neurons are often analyzed as computing devices that register bits of information, with each action potential carrying at most one bit of Shannon entropy. Here, I question this interpretation by using Landauer's principle to estimate an upper limit for the quantity of thermodynamic information that can be processed within a single action potential in a typical mammalian neuron. A straightforward calculation shows that an action potential in a typical mammalian cortical pyramidal cell can process up to approximately 3.4 · 10(11) bits of thermodynamic information, or about 4.9 · 10(11) bits of Shannon entropy. This result suggests that an action potential can, in principle, carry much more than a single bit of Shannon entropy.