Part of our brain’s cortex, the so-called neocortex, is very similar in humans and chickens, reports the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
For over 100 years, neurophysiologists have been convinced that the brains of humans and other mammals are very different (in favor) from the brains of other animals, including birds, far more advanced than they are. This belief was based in part on obvious differences in the structure of the neocortex, which is responsible for cognitive processes.
However, as evidenced by the research carried out over several decades by the team of prof. Harvey Karten of the University of California San Diego School of Medicine, comparable areas of study of sounds in the brain of chickens are structured very similar to that of mammals.
In the neocortex of mammals there are layers of cells, connected by radial columns of other cells, forming functional modules with specific types of neurons and specific connections. Early studies of corresponding regions in the brains of non-mammals did not show a similar structure, leading to the notion that neocortical cells are unique to nature and that birds are kind of like feathery automatons. Only the work of Korten showed that the part of the bird’s cerebral cortex responsible for hearing is built in this way. Presumably animals with a similar structure of the brain – the common ancestors of birds and mammals – appeared about 300 million years ago (PAP)