Cat Brain - Intelligence - Emotions

I was curious to see if I could find the "measure" of a cat's intelligence.

We have seven cats, and two of them seem to be more intelligent than the others. It could just be that their personalities require more of our attention - I really don't know, so I thought I'd do some internet research to see if some of my questions could have some answers.

My first stop was Wikipedia, there was one paragraph that I found interesting ....
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cat_intelligence

Brain size and surface area

...
The brain of a cat
The brain size of the average cat is 5 centimeters in length and 30 grams. ...

Cat brains have been shown to be more similar to human brains than dog brains, and the part of the brain for emotions is the same in both cats and humans.[3] According to researchers at Tufts University School of Veterinary Medicine, the physical structure of human brains and that of cats are very similar; they have the same lobes in the cerebral cortex (the "seat" of intelligence) as humans do.[citation needed] Human brains also function the same way, conveying data via many identical neurotransmitters.[citation needed] ...

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Both of the two cats seem to be overly sensitive - maybe I've found a clue.

Of course all seven have areas of intelligence where they excel - but, I'm curious - so, I'll keep researching.

Well, I thought this was fascinating. It made Gary cry - thinking about the outside kitties.

Do keep us posted!

Awwww, that's wonderful, and truthfully it doesn't surprise me one bit!

What it failed to mention is that while the brains can look alike the actual way the brains are used and "wired" is going to be vastly different. Even among people the way the brain works can be very different - a person without ADHD and a person with will have very different fMRI scans (they're starting to do more work in this area). Various other things affect the brain very much.

So while all the main parts are there, don't assume a cat thinks and feels the exact same thing is you do. This isn't fair to the cat, humans are a terrible species to be compared to!

As I've said before I think cats feel their own distinct emotions in their own way and affected by their own perceptions and experiences. The latter two greatly determine the behavior. Which is how you get two cats that act so differently over the same thing.



As for the OP wondering about intelligence. That again depends on experience, but also genetics and how much that cat was allowed to learn growing up as a kitten (nutrition during that time, too). Playing with a kitten and engaging it in a lot of games will help the brain develop. But, again, while brains may look the same no two actually truly are. Different "wiring" and use per individual is what makes some seem a little smarter at one thing or another.

I have a rather odd example: I have a couple of leopard geckos. One was raised by a breeder, the other was hatched and shipped off to a pet store. The one that ended up starving in a pet store for who knows how long (petco pity buy on my part), was malnourished and took time to catch up. I have no doubt her brain didn't develop as well as the healthy well feed breeder raised leo. She's not smart as far as leo's go, she cannot figure out the concept of a food dish when every other gecko I have has - it was difficult enough to teach her to use a water dish. She also doesn't seem to really have any sort of hunting instinct (poor breeding genetics could be playing a part) and thus must be hand fed. There's also no fear in her of anything larger than herself. I'm sure that visually her brain looks like every other leopard gecko, but it just didn't develop.

Good points, but I also think part of the question is potential.

In a different vein, but thought those interested in the original post mind find this interesting too, searching for something totally unrelated, I happened upon this a few minutes ago: http://magma.nationalgeographic.com/.../hilights.html

Scroll down to "The Family Line: The Human-Cat Connection."

Dogs may be our best friends, but cats are closer to our genetic kin. If you rearranged only a few cat chromosomes, you could convert the gene order into a human pattern. To do that for a dog or mouse would require about a hundred chromosome flips.

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^And we're even closer to the great apes. Careful where you tread with that on here, though, as it might start an anti-evolution debate out of someone.

But yes, there are some parts of a cats anatomy that are closer to humans than many other animals are. There are consequences to this, though..