/sci/ - Science & Math

>>12359241
brain to body ratios are applied to the brain as a whole, not specifically to the cortex; most neurons in large animals end up in regions like the cerebellum that are used for movement (an elephant's brain is over 95% cerebellum). it also has less accuracy when taking scale into account, as a 5% increase in neurons for an elephant is going to have significantly more impact than a 5% increase in neurons for a mouse or a cat.

asian elephants are a good example for comparison, their brains are roughly the same size by weight as an orca brain (12-14lbs), and they are one of the only known animal groups to have spindle neurons, only otherwise found in apes and whales/dolphins, that are believed to be directly tied to higher intelligence. asian elephants have 6.775B cortex neurons. orcas have 43B cortex neurons. from that alone we can see that orcas have an almost 6.4x larger cortex in what is otherwise generally equal sized brain.