Study finds dogs are brainier than cats
There's a new twist to the perennial argument about which is smarter, cats or dogs.
There's a new twist to the perennial argument about which is smarter, cats or dogs.
Plants & Animals
Nov 29, 2017
7
2150
The evolution of larger brains in the last 3 million years played an important role in our ability as a species to think, problem-solve, and develop culture. But the genetic changes behind the expansion that made us human ...
Cell & Microbiology
May 31, 2018
2
995
In humans and other mammals, the cerebral cortex is responsible for sensory, motor, and cognitive functions. Understanding the organization of the neuronal networks in the cortex should provide insights into the computations ...
Evolution
Jul 21, 2016
7
340
Pigeons aren't so bird-brained after all. New research at the University of Iowa shows that pigeons can discriminate the abstract concepts of space and time—and seem to use a different region of the brain than humans and ...
Plants & Animals
Dec 4, 2017
1
1284
Neurons that remain active even after the triggering stimulus has been silenced form the basis of short-term memory. The brain uses rhythmically active neurons to combine larger groups of neurons into functional units. Until ...
Computer Sciences
Apr 19, 2018
0
59
Neural probe arrays are expected to significantly benefit the lives of amputees and people affected by spinal cord injuries or severe neuromotor diseases. By providing a direct route of communication between the brain and ...
Engineering
Mar 26, 2014
0
0
A team of researchers with affiliations to institutions in Brazil, Portugal and Spain has found evidence of a continuous phase transition occurring in the brains of rats when they move from sleep to wakefulness. In their ...
A seemingly unique part of the human and mammalian brain is the neocortex, a layered structure on the outer surface of the organ where most higher-order processing is thought to occur. But new research at the University of ...
Other
Oct 1, 2012
1
0
(PhysOrg.com) -- Scientists have uncovered a self-organizing biological principle in the brains of three very different, genetically diverse mammals -- but in all three they found the same mathematically precise "pinwheel" ...
Evolution
Nov 4, 2010
11
0
A study on canine brain networks reveals that during mammalian brain evolution, the role of the cingulate cortex, a bilateral structure located deep in the cerebral cortex, was partly taken over by the lateral frontal lobes, ...
Evolution
May 26, 2023
0
267
The cerebral cortex is a structure within the brain that plays a key role in memory, attention, perceptual awareness, thought, language, and consciousness. It constitutes the outermost layer of the cerebrum. In preserved brains, it has a grey color, hence the name "grey matter". Grey matter is formed by neurons and their unmyelinated fibers, whereas the white matter below the grey matter of the cortex is formed predominantly by myelinated axons interconnecting different regions of the central nervous system. The human cerebral cortex is 2–4 mm (0.08–0.16 inches) thick.
The surface of the cerebral cortex is folded in large mammals, such that more than two-thirds of the cortical surface is buried in the grooves, called "sulci." The phylogenetically most recent part of the cerebral cortex, the neocortex, also called isocortex, is differentiated into six horizontal layers; the more ancient part of the cerebral cortex, the hippocampus (also called archicortex), has at most three cellular layers, and is divided into subfields. Relative variations in thickness or cell type (among other parameters) allow us to distinguish between different neocortical architectonic fields. The geometry of at least some of these fields seems to be related to the anatomy of the cortical folds, and, for example, layers in the upper part of the cortical ridges (called gyri) seem to be more clearly differentiated than in its deeper parts.
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