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Birds not so 'bird-brained' after all

Researchers at Duke University have proposed changes to the naming of bird neurosystems arguing that numerous studies demonstrate that various regions of avian brains are sophisticated processing regions that correspond in function to ones found in mammalian brains. These processing regions include areas that allow “sensory processing, motor control and sensorimotor learning just as the mammalian neocortex.”

The scientists add that molecular studies reveal the avian and mammalian brain regions are comparable in their genetic and biochemical machinery.

From the paper in Nature Reviews Neuroscience:

On the basis of this new understanding of avian brain organization and its evolutionary relationships, we estimate that, as in mammals, the adult avian pallium comprises about 75% of the telencephalic volume…. This realization of a relatively large and well developed avian pallium that processes information in a similar manner to mammalian sensory and motor cortices sets the stage for a re-evaluation of the cognitive abilities of birds…. For example, pigeons can memorize up to 725 different visual patterns, learn to categorize objects as ‘human-made’ versus ‘natural’, discriminate cubistic and impressionistic styles of painting, communicate using visual symbols, rank patterns using transitive inferential logic and occasionally ‘lie’…. Scrub-jays show episodic memory — the ability to recall events that take place at a specific time or place, which was once thought to be unique to humans. This same species modifies its food-storing strategy according to the possibility of future stealing by other birds and, therefore, exhibits a behavior that would qualify as theory-of-mind.

bird brains.jpg

These illustrations [taken from the press release] compare the traditional view of the primitive avian brain as a subregion of the human brain (in purple) with the new view that the avian brain has subregions proportional to those in humans (blue, purple and green). Scientists now know that the complexities of avian brain regions allow sensory processing, motor control and sensorimotor learning as in the mammalian neocortex (in green).

All in all, this new awareness and further understanding of the cognitive abilities of birds should provide us with new ways to think about how we think.

Press release from the National Science Foundation: “Scientists Propose Sweeping Changes to Naming of Bird Neurosystems to Acknowledge Their True Brainpower

The Nature Reviews Neuroscience article: Download file

Posted by theresa at 10:24 AM

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