Study Finds Dogs Are Brainier Than Cats (vanderbilt.edu)

Science_afficionado writes: Are you a cat lover? A dog lover? If so, you may be interested in the first scientific study to actually count the number of cortical neurons in the brains of a number of carnivores, including cats and dogs. Bottom line: Dogs have about twice as many of these "little grey cells" as cats. These "little gray cells" are associated with thinking, planning and complex behavior. The study found that dogs have about 530 million cortical neurons while cats have about 250 million. (For comparison, the human brain has 16 billion.) Another interesting discovery was that carnivores have about the same ratio of neurons to brain size as that of herbivores, "suggesting that there is just as much evolutionary pressure on the herbivores to develop the brain power to escape from predators as there is on carnivores to catch them," reports Vanderbilt University. "The study's findings also challenge the prevailing view that domesticated animals have smaller brains than their wild cousins. The ratios of brain size to body weight of the domestic species they analyzed -- ferret, cat and dog -- did not scale in a significantly different manner from those of their wild relatives -- mongoose, raccoon, hyena, lion and brown bear."

The results of the study are described in a paper titled "Dogs have the most neurons, though not the largest brain: Trade-off between body mass and number of neurons in the cerebral cortex of large carnivoran species" accepted for publication in the open access journal Frontiers in Neuroanatomy.

Comments

What about the various cat/dog breeds

[Anonymous Coward]

I would be curious about breed specifics and percentage difference if any or other genetic factors as some are waaaay smarter than others.

Re:What about the various cat/dog breeds

[The Grim Reefer]

As the article points out wild animals seem to be brainier, however a wolf doesn't have a lot of traits that we equate to intelligence that our pet dog has. For examples Dogs can understand the abstract concept of pointing, while wolves cannot. Dogs can be taught a lot of tricks and behaviors that may be outside their normal instinctive behavior, while wolves do not. However Dogs bark and make a lot of noise, and are much more disorganized in hunting by themselves, which would put them at a disadvantage in a non-human world.

As someone who has owned a wolf in the past, I can assure you that you don't know what you are talking about. I was able to train him to sit, stay, heel, lay down and come in less than half a day. I never saw anything quite like it. I could also point at damn near anything and tell him to get it, and he would bring it to me. This included flies that got into the house. On the occasion that one would land out of his reach (basically the ceiling) he would sit and wait for it to move again. I just wish he would have taken them to the trash can rather then bring them to me.

He was a great companion rather than a pet, but I would never think about doing that again as they are much more independent thinking than a dog. If there was someone or something he felt was a threat, it didn't matter what I said, he wanted to kill it. There were two occasions that I caught him mid air going for someones throat. After that I made sure to keep him away from anyone that he didn't like. He would also pin people to the floor if they moved around me in a threatening manner. Two things that I never quite figured out were why he hated bicycles and anyone having a gun other than myself. If anyone carried a gun onto my property, he would take it and bring it to me.

Social Complexity

[theweatherelectric]

Social complexity seems to be a driver for intelligence. Hyena society is quite complex with clans and a dominance hierarchy within each clan. Hyenas seem to have theory of mind and seem to practice tactical deception. Hyenas are also good cooperative problem solvers, outperforming primates.

Re:Social Complexity

[KozmoStevnNaut]

Woah dude, lay off the stalking.

Border Collie

[MrKaos]

My B.C was really smart. She was really easy to train and such a great friend, gentle with kids, even when they weren't so gentle.

The best thing about dogs is they teach you how to be a better person and live more in the moment just by throwing a ball. If your dog is too fat, you need to exercise.

There's a reason we don't train Cats

[Ayano]

For rescue, or military, or even bomb detection. They're a comfort pet. Outside of biological advantages of dogs for these tasks, cats are difficult to train in those tasks as they're solitary animals.

Re:There's a reason we don't train Cats

[geekmux]

For rescue, or military, or even bomb detection. They're a comfort pet. Outside of biological advantages of dogs for these tasks, cats are difficult to train in those tasks as they're solitary animals.

You can call them solitary. You can call them regal. You can call them comfort pets.

I call it dumb, and now science tends to confirm it, so perhaps we can stop with the excuses now. They aren't "difficult" to train; they can't be trained because they're rather stupid. Plain and simple. Usually the only one getting schooled around a cat is the owner.

Dogs want fun

[unfortunateson]

There has to be some level of entertainment for the dog too: My previous dog would carry tennis balls to the top of the stairs in order to drop them and chase them. No owner reward at all. Current dog won't fetch anything, even for a reward. If it's not moving, it has no interest at all: she only wants the chase.

Re:They may have more cells...

[AmiMoJo]

Cat's use a brute force approach to intelligence.

They don't understand cause and effect, and don't have object permanence (if they see a toy they don't understand it is the same toy they had yesterday, they just know it's /a/ toy and smells like them so it must be theirs). To make up for this, they are curious and patient. They will try things over and over again to see what happens, and learn through positive and negative re-enforcement.

This can lead to some surprisingly clever behaviour. We have all see videos of cats opening doors and the like, they the most common one is to learn how to manipulate their staff. For example, adult cats don't meow in the wild, but quickly learn that it's the most efficient way to summon their servants and signal that it's time for a massage. Same with food, lot of people swear that their cats are fussy and will only take hand-fed choice cuts of chicken, but actually they just learned to keep ignoring food that is offered until the good stuff comes out.