Clever Corvids: keeping count (Introduction)

by David Turell , Tuesday, June 09, 2015, 18:02 (3455 days ago) @ David Turell

Crows definitely keep count:-http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/06/150608152002.htm-"Helen Ditz and Professor Andreas Nieder of the University of Tübingen found the neuronal basis of this numerical ability in crows. They trained crows to discriminate groups of dots. During performance, the team recorded the responses of individual neurons in an integrative area of the crow endbrain. This area also receives inputs from the visual system. The neurons ignore the dots' size, shape and arrangement and only extract their number. Each cell's response peaks at its respective preferred number.-"The study published in PNAS provides valuable insights into the biological roots of counting capabilities. "When a crow looks at three dots, grains or hunters, single neurons recognize the groups' 'threeness' ," says Helen Ditz. "This discovery shows that the ability to deal with abstract numerical concepts can be traced back to individual nerve cells in corvids." -"What makes this finding even more interesting is that a long evolutionary history separates us from birds. As a consequence, the brains of crows and humans are designed very differently."