The number of neurons in the cortex, which performs the most complex cognitive functions, differs from dog to cat. Who has more?
In the perennial dichotomy between cats and dogs, a new research would put Fido on a higher step. But be careful, he's not necessarily smarter! The subject of the investigation, this time, is the number of neurons in the cortex, which carries out the most complex cognitive functions. The result? We'll see.
A study published in the journal Frontiers in Neuroanatomy by an international research group led by Vanderbilt University in Tennessee compared several species of carnivores to see the relationship between the number of neurons and brain size. And dogs would have twice as many neurons as cats.
Suzana Herculano-Houzel, a psychologist and biologist at Vanderbilt University, and her collaborators developed a method for calculating the number of cortical neurons in the brains of 8 species of domestic and wild carnivores, including dogs and cats. The researchers analyzed the brains of ferrets, mongooses, raccoons, cats, dogs, hyenas, lions and brown bears: all belong to the order of carnivores, which covers mammals that have teeth and claws that allows them to eat other creatures. The group was chosen because it has a wide range of brain sizes and includes both domestic and wild species.
It thus emerged that dogs have an average of 530 million neurons in their cortex, compared to 250 million for cats.
This is the precise list:
- Humans - 16 billion
- Gorilla - 8/9 billion
- Chimpanzee - 6/7 billion
- African elephant - 5.6 billion
- Golden retriever – 627 milioni
- Leo - 500 million
- Hyena - 495 million
- Small / mixed dog - 429 million
- Raccoon - 348 million
- Cat - 250 million
- Brown bear - 251 million
- Mongoose - 116 million
- Ferret - 39 million
"I believe that the sheer number of neurons an animal has, especially in the cerebral cortex, determines the richness of their internal mental state and their ability to predict what is going to happen in their environment based on past experience," explains the Dr Suzana Herculano- Houzel.
In fact, it turned out that many animals with larger brains have fewer neurons. For example, a golden retriever's brain has more neurons than a hyena, lion, or brown bear, although these animals have brains up to three times the size. And a brown bear had a similar number of neurons to a cat, even though it has a brain 10 times larger, suggesting that cats are as smart as bears, even if they are not as smart as dogs.
That said, it would appear that dogs have the "biological ability to do more complex and articulate things than cats." Probable and possible. But then does this mean that dogs are "smarter"?
Try to make a point of Celia Haddon, cat behaviorist and author of "100 Ways for a Cat to Train Its Humans," who argues that cats may have fewer neurons than dogs because they are not social. "One reason dogs may have more neurons in their brains than cats may be because they are social animals," she explains. They are descendants of wolves who hunt in packs and therefore need complex behaviors to cooperate with each other. This also helps them to cooperate with humans, so we have guide dogs, medical research dogs and so on. "
On the other hand, cats do not have these behaviors because they hunt alone and can, and often live, alone. And then, Haddon commented: "one could say that they are smarter than dogs because they only eat cat food and do not have to do anything in return".
What is the truth then? Probably not there, thanks to the eternal rivalry between dog owners and cat owners: most of those who prefer dogs will probably say that they are intellectually superior to cats, and vice versa.
How do you position yourself?
Germana Carillo
