To make her results-yielding "brain soup," as she calls it, the research team used only a part of the brain called the cerebral cortex, the crinkly outer layer that sits on top of the brain's other pieces. "The more units you find in the brain, the more cognitively capable the animal is." "Neurons are the basic information processing units," said Herculano-Houzel. From there, she said, you end up with a number of suspended nuclei from neuron cells that allow the researchers to estimate the number of neurons present. "You take the brain and turn it into a soup," she said, matter-of-factly, as the first step to finding these neurons. To get as precise a measurement as possible, she starts by counting neurons, a special type of nerve cell found in the brain that transmits messages. For the past decade, the now Vanderbilt professor has been studying cognitive function in humans and animals. One of the study's authors is noted neurologist Suzana Herculano-Houzel. A team of researchers from six different universities in the U.S., Brazil, Denmark, and South Africa contributed to the research. This finding was provisionally accepted for publication and will soon publish in the journal Frontiers in Neuroanatomy. One of our most contentious debates may now have an answer.ĭogs, it turns out, have about twice the number of neurons in their cerebral cortexes than what cats have, which suggests they could be about twice as intelligent.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |