Are Dogs Smarter Than Cats? Science Has an Answer

A team of researchers counted the number of neurons in dog and cat brains and found one had twice as many as the other.

One of our most contentious debates may now have an answer.

Dogs, it turns out, have about twice the number of neurons in their cerebral cortexes than what cats have, which suggests they could be about twice as intelligent.

This finding was provisionally accepted for publication and will soon publish in the journal Frontiers in Neuroanatomy. A team of researchers from six different universities in the U.S., Brazil, Denmark, and South Africa contributed to the research.

One of the study's authors is noted neurologist Suzana Herculano-Houzel. For the past decade, the now Vanderbilt professor has been studying cognitive function in humans and animals. To get as precise a measurement as possible, she starts by counting neurons, a special type of nerve

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