[kellyhound]

A bird’s brain looks nothing like ours. Most primate brains have a cerebral cortex with lots of curves and crinkles. Nerve cells packed within those wrinkles help people think, remember and learn. A bird brain instead looks smooth, Pepperberg notes. That simpler-looking brain long led scientists to think that to have a bird brain was to be stupid.

Pepperberg knew that was wrong.

In the 1980s, she gave talks about parrots’ brainy feats. “But it can’t be happening,” she recalls people saying, because “there’s no cerebral cortex” in those birds.

Then, by the early 2000s, scientists learned that parts of a bird’s brain resemble the neocortex found in mammals. That’s the largest part of the cerebral cortex.

Later work found that compared to mammals, bird forebrains have “a higher total number of neurons for the same amount of skull space,” says Erich Jarvis. Found in the front of the brain, the forebrain helps with complex behaviors. Jarvis studies the genetics of the brain at Rockefeller University in New York City.

Parrot forebrains are very densely packed with neurons. Some species of these birds even have more neurons than such large-brained primates as chimps and orangutans. And those neurons may link up in ways not found in other animals, Jarvis says.

One 2018 study found a major information highway in parrot brains. It connects the front and back of their brains. Front parts involved in complex behaviors send information to the cerebellum. That region at the back of the brain helps with coordination and balance.

https://www.snexplores.org/article/p...nce-bird-brain

[Steve]

[WonderMomma]

RIP Alex the grey.

lol omg I might move in and live in this thread.

[houseoftechno]

[Steve]

[mr_feelgood]

I said "awe" when it rolled over on the hammock

[Mr.NoCredit]

They’re amazing creatures. Animals are so much more intelligent than humans give them credit for. I’ve seen behaviors in my koi fish that have “blown me out of the water” so to speak. Even fish have intelligence.