Crow are fresh cookies . They cangrasp analogies , usage tools , and havebested human childrenin intelligence tests . They ’re also decent at reckon .
Birds show an ability to keep cart track of number even without the contribution of the mind that primates use to matter . So how do they do it ? A newfangled subject field in the journalPNASfinds that even though birds and primates evolved with different wit structures , they developed similar nervous procedure to manage with quantification .
Mammal brains sport asix - layered neopallium , a thin structure surrounding the brain which scientists reckon is involve in high - spirit level cognition . Birds and reptile , by direct contrast , do n’t have a neopallium . But , even though crow do n’t have the brain bodily structure that mammals like chimpanzee and human use to keep track of numbers , they somehow accomplish alike tasks . They do this using the nidopallium caudolaterale , a front part of the shuttlecock brain that’scomparableto ( but not exactly like ) a human ’s prefrontal cortex .
Researchers from the Institute of Neurobiology in Tübingen , Germany , trained two crows to count , take them identify images with the same issue of dots on a silver screen . They then immortalise the crowing ’ brain activity during the project , crack in on 499 random neurons . About 20 per centum of them terminate during the test .
sure neurons in the nidopallium caudolaterale need to raise for the crow to reckon correctly . The researchers write that “ if the neuron did not properly encode their preferred numerosity , the crow was prostrate to make fault . ” These neurons lead to “ high - level , abstract visual representation ” of numbers that allowed the crows to calculate properly . Essentially , the chemical codes that earmark the brain to weigh look similar to those seen in primates — but the complex body part were different .
Determining how the brains of fowl study helps scientist infer phylogeny . Similarities between the functions of mammal and bird brains could designate that sealed abilities develop in a common ancestor , or that particular ways of tantalise information came about severally in different metal money .
