3 ms·

tldr; The article states: "The superior cognitive capabilities of the human brain over the elephant brain can simply—and only—be attributed to the remarkably l

tldr; The article states: "The superior cognitive capabilities of the human brain over the elephant brain can simply—and only—be attributed to the remarkably large number of neurons in its cerebral cortex." which simply does not follow. Well, that and we cook!

acqq 9y ago
No, sorry, it's completely wrong "tldr". Instead, the author presents the first ever counting of the cells in the different parts of the elephant brain using a new method, different from the previous attempts, which results in the different numbers for the different sections of the brain. The new result shows that the elephant brain has indeed more cells than the human one, but that the distribution is different. To those who don't know: cerebellum is the part of the brain at the back of the skull in vertebrates, in humans it's in the lower area of the brain. http://brainmadesimple.com/cerebellum.html http://brainmadesimple.com/cerebellum.html Look at the brains compared: http://natureinstitute.org/pub/ic/ic5/Images/IC5_page13.gif http://natureinstitute.org/pub/ic/ic5/Images/IC5_page13.gif The Cerebral Cortex of the elephant looks bigger, but, according to the author, has 5.6 billion neurons, compared to the 16 billion neurons in human's: http://brainmadesimple.com/cortex-and-lobes-of-the-brain.html http://brainmadesimple.com/cortex-and-lobes-of-the-brain.htm... This is new, as the estimates of the count of the cells of in the different parts of the brain of elephant varied before. See nickledave's post for the link to the scientific work about the the method.
antome 9y ago
Furthermore the Long-finned pilot whale has been shown to have more neurons in the Cerebral cortex than humans. Given the lack of large-scale research in this area, it is not unreasonable to think that several other dolphin species could also beat this count. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_animals_by_number_of_neurons#Cerebral_cortex https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_animals_by_number_of_n...
- acqq 9y ago
  The author of the article argues that stereology is less suited for making the whole brain cell counts, and it can be that her method gives different results, just like it gave for elephants: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4380666/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4380666/ "Subsequent work using computer simulations, however, revealed that a considerably larger number of cells should be counted (e.g. 700–1,000, Schmitz and Hof, 2000). It is possible that too small of a sample size may explain some of the discrepant results seen in stereology studies." Of course there's chance that her approach will confirm the current estimates for dolphins, and then the simple count of the neurons in the neocortex will be too simple explanation to be valid. In computer terms, it's easy to show: the transistor count of the CPU is not the only count that can predict the suitability of CPU for some specific tasks. Her research showed that the brains of elephants do have bigger total count of the neurons, compared to the total count of the neurons of human brains.

acqq 9y ago

No, sorry, it's completely wrong "tldr". Instead, the author presents the first ever counting of the cells in the different parts of the elephant brain using a new method, different from the previous attempts, which results in the different numbers for the different sections of the brain. The new result shows that the elephant brain has indeed more cells than the human one, but that the distribution is different. To those who don't know: cerebellum is the part of the brain at the back of the skull in vertebrates, in humans it's in the lower area of the brain. http://brainmadesimple.com/cerebellum.html http://brainmadesimple.com/cerebellum.html Look at the brains compared: http://natureinstitute.org/pub/ic/ic5/Images/IC5_page13.gif http://natureinstitute.org/pub/ic/ic5/Images/IC5_page13.gif The Cerebral Cortex of the elephant looks bigger, but, according to the author, has 5.6 billion neurons, compared to the 16 billion neurons in human's: http://brainmadesimple.com/cortex-and-lobes-of-the-brain.html http://brainmadesimple.com/cortex-and-lobes-of-the-brain.htm... This is new, as the estimates of the count of the cells of in the different parts of the brain of elephant varied before. See nickledave's post for the link to the scientific work about the the method.

antome 9y ago

Furthermore the Long-finned pilot whale has been shown to have more neurons in the Cerebral cortex than humans. Given the lack of large-scale research in this area, it is not unreasonable to think that several other dolphin species could also beat this count. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_animals_by_number_of_neurons#Cerebral_cortex https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_animals_by_number_of_n...

acqq 9y ago
The author of the article argues that stereology is less suited for making the whole brain cell counts, and it can be that her method gives different results, just like it gave for elephants: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4380666/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4380666/ "Subsequent work using computer simulations, however, revealed that a considerably larger number of cells should be counted (e.g. 700–1,000, Schmitz and Hof, 2000). It is possible that too small of a sample size may explain some of the discrepant results seen in stereology studies." Of course there's chance that her approach will confirm the current estimates for dolphins, and then the simple count of the neurons in the neocortex will be too simple explanation to be valid. In computer terms, it's easy to show: the transistor count of the CPU is not the only count that can predict the suitability of CPU for some specific tasks. Her research showed that the brains of elephants do have bigger total count of the neurons, compared to the total count of the neurons of human brains.