Debora Jardim-Messeder and her colleagues looked at the brains of animals in the order Carnivora, a group of mammals that contains bears, seals, and raccoons, as well as our domesticated cats and dogs. The purpose of the study was to explore the link between brain size and the number of neurons specialized cells that transmit information in the brain. If brain size is equal in different animals, the higher the number of neurons, the more densely packed those neurons are.
The researchers were particularly interested in the cerebral cortex — the part of the brain linked with intelligence — because it controls complex thought processes such as decision-making and planning. For example, primates, renowned for their smarts, have brains with very dense neurons. Eight species of Carnivora were included in the study, with one or two sample animals from each species. The one domestic cat and the two dogs one Golden Retriever and one dog of unspecified breed used by the researchers died of natural causes, and their bodies were donated to science.
Then, to determine the exact number of neurons, each brain was dissolved, and the number of cells in a sample of the resulting liquid was counted under a microscope. Cats have staff. Denis jokes. This board-certified feline veterinarian says cats can learn tricks like dogs , may know more human words than we thought, and develop special meows , trills, and chirps to communicate with their staff err, owners. Dogs seem to win out in these discussions because they learn what we want and do it.
Cats are different. Denis says. The alluring aloofness and independence cats display doesn't mean they need less medical care than more vocal, more attentive pooches. If you're a smart cat owner in need of a particularly talented feline, there are a few smart cat breeds with particular dispositions that might make a fabulous fit for you. Some cats, like Siamese , are big talkers. This is not to say that animal behavior researchers haven't tried to measure dog and cat intelligence — or, more precisely, cognitive abilities beyond those needed to sustain life.
Kristyn Vitale, an assistant professor of animal health and behavior at Unity College in Maine, said animal intelligence is typically divided into three broad areas: problem-solving ability, concept formation the ability to form general concepts from specific concrete experiences and social intelligence.
Vitale primarily studies cats, and her current focus on the inner life of cats revolves around social intelligence. Often stereotyped as aloof and disinterested in humans, cats actually show a high degree of social intelligence, "often at the same level as dogs," she told Live Science in an email.
For example, studies show that cats can distinguish between their names and similar-sounding words, and they have been found to prefer human interactions to food, toys and scents.
Human attention makes a difference to cats: A study published in the journal Behavioural Processes found that when a person paid attention to a cat, the cat responded by spending more time with that person.
In one of the rare studies directly comparing cats and dogs, researchers found no significant difference between the species' ability to find hidden food using cues from a human's pointing. As described in National Geographic , the team used three animal brains in order to measure the amount of neurons dogs and cats might commonly have: one from a cat, one from a bigger dog, and one from a smaller dog.
Two different types of dogs were used due to the canine's differing size. The researchers found around million neurons in the cortex of both dogs regardless of their size difference, which doubled the million neurons found in the cat's cortex.
A new study in Frontiers of Neuroanatomy says dogs may be "brainier" than cats. Their cerebral cortexes have 2x as many neurons as their????
Although other methods, such as brain size, have been used in the past for measuring intelligence, one of the study's authors, neuroscientist Suzana Herculano-Houzel , said there is little evidence to prove larger brain size in pets signifies higher intelligence.
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