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https://theconversation.com/what-elephants-unique-brain-structures-suggest-about-their-mental-abilities-100421>
"Conservationists have designated August 12 as World Elephant Day to raise
awareness about conserving these majestic animals. Elephants have many engaging
features, from their incredibly dexterous trunks to their memory abilities and
complex social lives.
But there is much less discussion of their brains, even though it stands to
reason that such a large animal has a pretty big brain (about 12 pounds).
Indeed, until recently very little was actually known about the elephant brain,
in part because obtaining well-preserved tissue suitable for microscopic study
is extremely difficult.
That door was opened by the pioneering efforts of neurobiologist Paul Manger at
the University of the Witwatersrand in South Africa, who obtained permission in
2009 to extract and preserve the brains of three African elephants that were
scheduled to be culled as part of a larger population management strategy. We
have thus learned more about the elephant brain in the last 10 years than ever
before.
The research shared here was conducted at Colorado College in 2009-2011 in
cooperation with Paul Manger, Columbia University anthropologist Chet Sherwood
and neuroscientist Patrick Hof of the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai.
Our goal was to explore the shapes and size of neurons in the elephant cortex.
My lab group has long been interested in the morphology, or shape, of neurons
in the cerebral cortex of mammals. The cortex constitutes the thin, outer layer
of neurons (nerve cells) that cover the two cerebral hemispheres. It is closely
associated with higher cognitive functions such as coordinated voluntary
movement, integration of sensory information, sociocultural learning and the
storing of memories that define an individual.
The arrangement and morphology of neurons in the cortex is relatively uniform
across mammals – or so we thought after decades of investigations on human and
nonhuman primate brains, and the brains of rodents and cats. As we found when
we were able to analyze elephant brains, the morphology of elephant cortical
neurons is radically different from anything we had ever observed before."
Via Muse, who wrote:
Be sure to watch the video in this article. It’s very sweet!
I remember someone commenting after my play about elephants that she thought
I might be laying on the sweet a bit much, but then in the middle of the
show is projected a short video of actual elephants. She said then she
realised that I had held back, because actually they are extremely sweet!
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
