猫更聪明还是狗更聪明

They might chew your shoes, occasionally pee on the rug, or snarf down your entire dinner the minute you turn your head, but it turns out your family dog is measurably smarter than your cat.

他们可能咬你的鞋子，偶尔还会在地毯上撒尿，或者在你掉头的一瞬间吃完整顿晚餐，但事实证明，家里养的狗狗比猫咪聪明多了。

Researchers at Vanderbilt decided to put the age old debate to the test objectively, studying the number of cortical neurons in the brains of a number of animals. The results? Canines had a significantly higher number than felines.

范德比尔特的研究人员决定将这场争论已久的话题客观实验化，研究多种动物大脑中的皮质神经元数量。结果是？犬科动物的神经元数量远远大于猫科动物。

Dogs, it turns out, have about 530 million cortical neurons. Cats have less than half that, coming in with 250 million. (We humans have about 16 billion.)

事实表明，狗狗含有5.3亿个皮质神经元。而猫咪含有的皮质神经元连这一半都不到，差不多2.5亿个。（人类含有160亿个。）

"I believe the absolute number of neurons an animal has, especially in the cerebral cortex, determines the richness of their internal mental state and their ability to predict what is about to happen in their environment based on past experience," said Suzana Herculano-Houzel, associate professor of psychology and biological sciences at Vanderbilt, who oversaw the study with a collection of international researchers.

"我相信动物神经元的绝对数量决定了它们的内心精神状态，并且决定了它们基于过去的经验，预测环境中将会发生什么的能力，尤其是大脑皮层中的神经元，"范特比尔特的心理学和生理学副教授Suzana Herculano-Houzel说道，她与国际研究人员合作负责监管这项研究。

The paper, which will be published in the journal Frontiers in Neuroanatomy (and almost certainly maligned on reddit, the Internet's haven for cat lovers), notes that the physical size of the brain doesn't necessarily relate to overall intelligence. For example, researchers found that the brain of a brown bear, while 10 times as large as a cat's, has roughly the same number of neurons. (Raccoons, also, are on par with cats when it comes to smarts.)

这篇研究将发表在《神经解剖学前沿》杂志上（Frontiers in Neuroanatomy），这对reddit的爱猫用户肯定造成了伤害。这篇研究指出大脑大小不一定与整体智力相关。比如，研究人员发现：虽然棕熊的大脑是猫咪的10倍，但它们的神经元数量却大致相同。（浣熊和猫咪的智力也差不多。）

Despite the findings, don't expect this argument to go away anytime soon. Herculano-Houzel herself admits that, while the study was objective, she herself does have a bit of a bias.

尽管有了这些发现，但人们并不会立马停止争论：猫更聪明还是狗更聪明？Herculano-Houzel自己就承认这一点，虽然研究是客观的，但她对这个问题却有着自己的偏见。

"I'm 100 percent a dog person," she says, "but our findings mean to me that dogs have the biological capability of doing much more complex and flexible things with their lives than cats can."

"我是爱狗狂人，"她说道，"但于我而言，我们的研究意味着：生活中，狗狗有着比猫咪做更复杂、更灵活事情的生理能力。"