No, Cats Are Not Smarter Than Dogs

Are dogs smarter than cats? Apparently, science now has an answer to that question. Thus, next we will know the outcome of one of the biggest controversies in the pet world.

Are dogs smarter than cats?

The number of neurons matters

A publication in the scientific journal  Frontiers in Neuroanatomy states that the cerebral cortex dogs harbor twice as many neurons as cats. The team of scientists responsible for this discovery comes from six universities located in the United States, Denmark, Brazil and South Africa.

The person responsible for the method to quantify the brain neurons of a species is Professor Suzana Herculano-Houzel. According to the scientist, the first step to arrive at an approximate number is to convert the brain into a soup,  since from that moment on it is easier to isolate the nuclei of neuronal cells and calculate their number.

Number of neurons, measure of intelligence

The neuron is the basic unit of information processing. The cognitive capacity of any living being, then, is directly related to the number of neurons it has. And according to Herculano-Houzel, the quantitative factor is key:

His findings are based on the application of the so-called “soup method”, the cerebral cortex of dogs, the nervous tissue that covers the two cerebral hemispheres, almost a few millimeters thick. Often called “grey matter,” this organic tissue is essential to our decision-making process.

The use of this brain zone is especially relevant, because it processes external stimuli that reach the species through vision and touch.

So are dogs smarter?

To reach the conclusion that dogs are smarter,  neurologist Herculano Houzel and his team used three brains: one from a cat, one from a  Golden retriever and another from a small stray dog .

Two dog brains were used because of the big differences that usually exist between breeds of different size. It was found that the cerebral cortex of both dogs housed five hundred million neurons and, meanwhile, the cat had only two hundred and fifty million.

So the researchers analyzed the brains of eight different species of carnivore to establish an equivalence. They chose ferrets, mongooses, raccoons, cats, dogs, hyenas, lions and brown bears.

In comparison, it was estimated that the  dog intelligence was similar to that of raccoons and lions, while that of the  cats  only comparable to that of bears. Each human being, on the other hand, has sixteen billion neurons in his brain. Next, the smartest species is the elephant with five billion six hundred million neurons.

A hypothesis still unconfirmed

A group of researchers was actually seeking to confirm the hypothesis that the brains of carnivorous species had more neurons in the cortex than those of herbivore species. This could not be confirmed, because there are no major differences in the correlation between the number of neurons/animal size.

It is estimated that this is so because the stress that herbivores were subjected to made them develop their brain capacity. In fact, the largest carnivores tend to have the fewest neurons. For example, a bear’s brain is ten times the size of a cat’s, but both have the same neurons.

In addition, the researchers were also surprised by the case of raccoons: with a brain the size of a cat, it has the same number of neurons as a dog. A raccoon has a higher number of neurons than the average of other animals in the same family.

Therefore, both dogs and cats can make excellent life companions for humans, although those who prefer cats now have one less argument in their favor.

Main image source: balnxii