Science has finally proven what many dog owners have said all along, Dogs are smarter than cats. Sorry, cat lovers. According to a report published in Science Daily, researchers conducted extensive studies on the brains of various carnivores. What they learned was that dogs possess many more neurons in the cerebral cortex portion of the brain than cats. Those neurons are the ones responsible for planning, thinking, and other complex thought. The scientists made their determination by counting the number of Cortical Neurons in the brains of carnivores.
Their study wasn’t limited to cats and dogs, they also studied ferrets, bears, lions, raccoons, mongoose, and hyenas. They counted each of the cortical neurons and compared them to the size of the animals' brains. They learned the size of the brain has little to do with the number of cortical neurons. What they found was that dogs have more cortical neurons than cats. In fact, they have over twice as many cortical neurons as cats, 530 million compared to 250 million in cats. Humans have over 16 billion cortical neurons, so we don’t have to worry about dogs or cats ruling the world anytime soon.
The number of cortical neurons is important, according to Associate Professor of Psychology and Biological Sciences Suzana Herculano-Houzel.
She said the high number of cortical neurons “determines the richness of their internal mental state and their ability to predict what is about to happen in their environment based on past experience."
Plant eaters are just as smart as meat eaters
The researchers compared the brains of herbivores to carnivores and found they had similar numbers.
This was surprising because it has always been thought that carnivores have a higher amount because of their predatory nature. Scientists believe herbivores' brains developed the same amount of neurons because they needed to learn to avoid and escape the carnivores.
City animals aren’t dumber than their wild counterparts
Researchers have long believed domesticated animals have smaller brains than wild animals.
However, the studies showed that the brains of domesticated animals and wild animals were essentially the same in size.
You won’t believe the brainiest animal
The humble raccoon, the masked marauder of campgrounds and trash cans, has the most powerful brain. The raccoon has the same number of cortical neurons as a dog, but their brain is the size of a cat's brain.
