Cats or dogs: scientists find out who is smarter

What animal is smarter? Dog or cat? This is the eternal question and the answer is virtually impossible.

However, a new study shows that it is possible to find the answers.

The study was based on a new method for accurate measurement of the number of neurons in the brain, was developed by Susan Gerbino-Housel associate Professor of psychology and biological Sciences at Vanderbilt University.

“I believe that the absolute number of neurons possessed by the animal, especially in the cortex, determines the richness of their inner mental state and their ability to predict a situation based on past experience,”says Hermano-Hotel.

By counting the number of neurons, scientists came to the conclusion that cats are smarter than dogs, as dogs of neurons around 530 million, and cats only 250 million. For comparison, in humans, cortical neurons, about 16 billion.

It’s a pretty significant difference, this study did not prove the fact that the more neurons, more brain. For example, the Golden Retriever had more cortical neurons than a brown bear whose brain is three times larger than that of a dog, the number of neurons in the bear approximately equal to the number counted in cats. One of the most intelligent animals was a raccoon, his brain’s about the size of a cat, but neurons in it as much as the dog.

Of course, such an arbitrary measurement of the brain is not an objective metric of such a complex trait as intelligence.

paradox