“For more than a century, neuroscientists believed that the brains of humans and other mammals differed from the brains of other animals, such as birds (and so were presumably better). This belief was based, in part, upon the readily evident physical structure of the neocortex, the region of the brain responsible for complex cognitive behaviors.
A new study, however, by researchers at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine finds that a comparable region in the brains of chickens concerned with analyzing auditory inputs is constructed similarly to that of mammals.
“And so ends, perhaps, this claim of mammalian uniqueness,” said Harvey J. Karten, MD, professor in the Department of Neurosciences at UCSD’s School of Medicine, and lead author of the study, published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Online Early Edition.
Generally speaking, the brains of mammals have long been presumed to be more highly evolved and developed than the brains of other animals, in part based upon the distinctive structure of the mammalian forebrain and neocortex – a part of the brain’s outer layer where complex cognitive functions are centered.”
Read more at Physorg
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“OUR BRAINS ARE MORE LIKE BIRDS’ THAN WE THOUGHT”
That’s a bit sexist, isn’t it? What makes you think blokes’ brains are so different in the first place?
I never thought that birds in general were less highly developed than mammals in general. Look at ravens and crows — they have a theory of mind and are capable of deceit. They also comfort each other after fights. I’d say they resemble some mammals (specifically, monkeys and apes, including humans) in that.
Now look at sheep. They’re mammals, but if they manage to end up in a water-filled ditch, they just give up, keel over and drown. I’d say the corvidae are a bit more intelligent…
Me, a bird owner and lover, never doubted that. Ofcourse there are differences, but at the same time they are not as different as humans, in ways of socializing. Personalities, disorders, abilities .. In a way disappointing, as I’d had hope for something else than human society in there, something better.
Studying their behaviour, so not researching body parts, brains, but studying them from the outside will tell you quite a lot.
Although their eyes are small, you can see the same things in their eyes as in human eyes. The older you yourself get, the more you will be able to see, as you will have to have something more in your bases to be able to see it in someone else. Ofcourse they wont go to jobs like us, wont read books, but they really do the same as us … dealing with time.
Not my bird’s.
boom-tish
Berber Anna – my dad often tells me of the wild magpie that was befriended by a monk at his grammar school. The monk taught the bird to talk, and it responded appropriately to commands. Corvidae are cool!
I also remember that squid and octopus are pretty clever for invertebrates with no actual brain.
Brain size, form and function are not always proportional. It’s not size that matters, it is what you do with it that counts!
I have to say, i struggled with the repetition in the piece on the link. Birdbrain here.
People seem to think that there’s a staggering amount of difference between us and animals, and so we’re always amazed when we see animals doing something ‘human like’. Like last year, when people in my area starting noticing little holes in the silver tops of their milk bottles, it turned out that blue tits were pecking through the tops in order to drink the milk inside – but not only that, they were apparently teaching other blue tits to do it, because it was a regional skill that blue tits nowhere else in the country had shown. So the birds had problem solving skills. Of course, everyone was amazed, but when you think about it, surely all animals would need some basic problem solving skills in order to survive, not just humans?
So yeah, respect the birds!
Could have done with wing similarities tbh
Jess: Hey, cool, your local birds actually did the same as a bunch of Dutch birds in the 1960s (our biology textbook back in school had a newspaper article from that era about that behavior, to illustrate how certain animals learn by example).
Rob: I’ve heard that octopuses actually have the same mental capacity as humans, but their abilities are sadly capped by their very short lifespan. They definitely are intelligent creatures, they recognise themselves in mirrors almost immediately when introduced to the concept and they have incredible memories (a NatGeo documentary showed how an octopus that had been captured and put in a tank on board a ship escaped and immediately made his way to the deck by the exact same route that the researchers took when they went to put him in the cabin).