A team of scientist from universities around the world come together to study the brains of various animals as compared those of humans , and found that dogs may be roughly double as smart as Caterpillar .
It all boil down to the identification number of neurons hold in the cerebral cortex of each coinage .
The study was conducted by researcher from universities in Brazil , South Africa , Denmark , and the U.S. Their findings are due to be publish in the journalFrontiers in Neuroanatomy .
Why Neurons Are Important
One of the study ’s authors , brain doctor Suzana Herculano - Houzel , is well - known in the scientific community , has been canvass cognitive function in human being and non - human animate being for about a ten .
According to Herculano - Houzel , the exact measurement of this cognitive purpose is dependent on the act ofneuronsin the cerebral cortex ; the more nerve cell , the more intelligent the animal .
Neuronsare nerve cells which serve as the building blocks of our skittish organisation . Their extremely specialised job is to pass entropy throughout the physical structure in many dissimilar ways . The more neurons you have in your mind , the more cognitively capable you are .
In a far-out analogy for how she attain this , Herculano - Houzel says she takes the brain and “ turns it into a soup , ” and observes the numbers of suspended nuclei from neuron electric cell . This equals the number of neurons present .
Stacking the Numbers of Each Species
Using the brains of 3 animals and liken them against humans , investigator were able to see how intelligent each one is .
They used one cat and two bounder ( one large , and one small , since bounder ’ sizes can vary so greatly ) .
humankind are used as the ultimate routine to measure against in this study , since we have the largest figure of neurons – about 16 billion per person .
Despite the sport in physical size , each dog ’s brain had about the same act of neurons – roughly 500 million .
cat only had half this phone number – about 250 million .
This number of nerve cell betoken that dogs have about the same storey of tidings as raccoons and lions , while domestic African tea have about the same intelligence storey as bear .
gorilla are the closest to world , possessing 8 - 9 billion nerve cell , andchimps fall next in line with 6 - 7 billion neurons .
So far , the smartest non - primate animals out there are elephants , who have about 5.6 billion neurons .
Making Scientific Progress
While these researchers are contributing to the age - quondam disputation among pet lovers about cats and blackguard , that was n’t their intention .
Their bigger destination was to find whether we can commence to use neurons as another quantifiable measure of intelligence agency . Until now , the measures typically used have been geomorphological complexness and brain size .
However , there is fiddling evidence behind the whimsy that a bigger brain equals more intelligence .
This research might help scientists gain a good understanding of just exactly what intelligence is in all its variations , and how sure measurements determine that intelligence .
