1/16/2024 0 Comments Number of neurons in brainMany of the structures we associate with higher cognition in mammals (and especially in primates) either aren't clearly there or look rather different in birds, which suggests that bird cognition has to be radically different from the cognition in mammals. If you know your way around some neuroanatomy, however, other things will stand out. That's in the same neighborhood as a rabbit. The raven, a large bird with a well-deserved reputation for intelligence, has a brain that is typically around 15g. Some of the heaviest brains in birds are found in the macaws, and those weigh in at under 25 grams. If you look at a typical avian brain without knowing much about brains, you'll mostly be impressed by the size (or lack of it). Its authors show that birds pack neurons into their brains at densities well above densities in mammals' brains, putting some relatively compact bird brains into the same realm as those of primates when it comes to total cell counts.Īnd the funny thing is, we probably should have known this was the case. While other studies have tackled a lot of the structural differences, a new one released this week in PNAS shows that, to some extent, size doesn't matter. Further Reading Crows: The tail-pulling, food-stealing bird prodigies
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