If you, like me, believed pigeons and other avian beings are stupid, you're wrong.
In a groundbreaking discovery presented in two papers, researchers found that birds are not only smart, but could be conscious and possess self-awareness.
The two papers by Ruhr University Bochum and University of Tübingen detailed a newly discovered arrangement of microcircuits in the brains of birds that is similar to the mammalian neocortex.
Birds have consciousness?
Birds are known to have a lack of a neocortex, the area of the brain which governs memory, problem solving, and planning in mammals.
So this discovery, according to wildlife biologist and specialist on crows at the University of Washington, Seattle, John Marzluff, raises the possibility that birds can think and perceive reality like humans.
“It’s often assumed that birds’ alien brain architecture limits thought, consciousness, and most advanced cognition,” Marzluff, who was not involved in the study, said.
Ruhr University's neuroanatomist Martin Stacho pointed out that while both mammal and avian brains share a lack of commonality, they still have many of the same cognitive skills.
How did researchers discover that birds are smarter than we thought?
To understand the intelligence of our avian friends, Stacho and his team studied microscopic slices of three homing pigeon brains via 3D polarized light imaging.
Using this high-resolution technique, researchers were able to analyze the circuitry of the pallium - the forebrain area similar to the neocortex. Scientists then compared these images of bird's pallia with monkey, rat, and human cortices to make the stunning discovery.
To find out why birds are cognitively intelligent as mammals, the researchers removed the brains of deeply anesthetized pigeons and owls, injected crystals into dissected brains to unearth circuits in the sensory regions - similar to that of mammals.
“This research confirms the adage that looks can be deceiving,” Marzluff said to Science, adding that though the mammal and avian brains appear different, they're wired similarly.
Are birds self-aware?
University of Tübingen neurophysiologist Andreas Nieder, on the other hand, studied the brains of carrion crows. These crows (Corvus corrone) are known to be intelligent.
Applying similar tests used to detect consciousness in primates, Nieder and his team set up a monitor that displayed a faint cue. They then trained two lab-bred carrion crows to move or stay still based on what was displayed on the monitor.
Implanting electrodes in their brains to record their neuronal signals.
So each time the crows reacted, the neurons fired. For researchers, this is an indication that the crows have consciously perceived the cue.
When the birds remain motionless, the neurons were silent. By the way, these same neurons are located in the pallia.
Nieder has dubbed them “an empirical marker of sensory consciousness in birds’ brains.”
Despite bird and mammal brains evolving differently, both Stacho and Nieder believe that the two species are wired similarly due to their shared common ancestry 320 million years back.
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Cover image sourced from Sneha Cecil / Unsplash.
