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Research Shows Bird Brains Aren’t So Bad The next time someone calls you a “bird brain,” you should thank them. Changing Opinions Neuroscientists’ opinions about the brains of birds have changed. In humans and other mammals, the roof of the forebrain has evolved into the cerebral cortex, a structure responsible for flexible learning and reasoning. Early neuroanatomists thought that the forebrain roof was small and simple in birds, with its forebrain instead being dominated by structures in its base, called the basal ganglia. Without an elaborate forebrain roof, it seemed that birds couldn’t be very smart. New Research Recent research shows that birds are a lot smarter than scientists once thought. To give just a few examples, the New Caledonian crow can manufacture and use tools. The African grey parrot can learn to classify objects into categories, and the Florida scrub jay stores food in dozens of caches and can remember their locations for future use. It turns out that neuroanatomists had it all wrong about bird forebrains. During more than 300 million years of separate evolution, the forebrain roofs of birds and of mammals each grew larger and more elaborate, but in different ways. The roof of a bird’s forebrain is so different from the cerebral cortex of a mammal that the neuroanatomists had confused most of it with enlarged basal ganglia. 译文 鸟类并不笨头笨脑 下次有人对你说“头笨如鸟”的话，你要谢谢他。 转变观点 神经系统科学家关于鸟类大脑的传统观念发生了转变。人类和其他哺乳动物的前脑顶层已经进化为大脑皮层，这一结构主管弹性学习和推理能力。 早期的神经系统科学家认为鸟类的前脑顶层在大脑中面积小，构造简单，且并非由大脑基底部名为基底神经节的结构组成。因此，鸟类并不拥有复杂精妙的前脑顶层，这似乎决定了鸟类智商有限。 新研究 最近的研究表明鸟类要比科学家想象的聪明得多。例如，新喀里多尼亚乌鸦会制作和使用工具。非洲灰鹦鹉能学会对东西进行分类，佛罗里达灌丛鸦会将食物存储在不同的地方，并且能记住位置，以备将来之需。 结果是神经解剖学家 对鸟类前脑的研究完全错误。在3亿多年各自的进化过程中，鸟类和哺乳动物的前脑顶层分别以不同的方式变大变精。鸟类的大脑顶层与哺乳动物的大脑皮层差别如此之大以至于神经解剖学家 将其与增大的基底神经节基本都弄混了。 PS：必威体育精装版的研究表明，鸟儿其实非常聪明，智力和人们一般熟知的高智能动物——猩猩或者海豚不相上下。据2005 年2月出版的《自然神经科学评论》报道，杜克大学神经生物学家艾里奇·贾维茨领导的一个鸟类专家国际小组近日宣布，鸟类的大脑和任何哺乳动物的大脑一样，是复杂、灵活、具有创造性的，有关鸟类大脑的解剖学教科书里所写的几乎都是错误的。专家表示，鸟类大脑的成簇组织承担着和大脑皮层近乎相似的功效，这使其不仅能依靠本能生存，还可记忆不同场景、学会高等哺乳动物的多种技