Many cognitive neuroscientists believe that both a large brain and an isocortex are crucial for complex cognition. Yet corvids and parrots possess non-cortical brains of just 1–25 g, and these birds exhibit cognitive abilities comparable with chimpanzees, which have brains of about 400 g.

Invasive neuronal tract tracing is prohibited in very large or endangered animals, particularly marine mammals like dolphins. Scientists from Germany and Italy propose diffusion-weighted imaging as a feasible alternative, even in brains fixed in formalin for extended periods.

Pigeons can categorize innumerable naturalistic and artificial visual stimuli they encounter. Computational models suggest that elementary associative learning lies at the root of the pigeon’s category learning and generalization.

How is intelligence related to the dynamic interaction of billions of neurons in the human brain? A prominent hypothesis posits that general intelligence is related to the efficiency of the brain’s global functional network. But some publications question this link.

When well-known food resources are running out, animals extinguish their foraging behavior in that food patch and increasingly work for reward-related information. This re-orientation serves to decrease outcome uncertainty of foraging.

Sebastian and Onur completely overhauled their book and included hundreds of new references, many new pictures and a completely new chapter on asymmetries and development.

It is a venerable tradition that each faculty of the Ruhr University selects one of its students for the science award of the year. This usually takes place in the Auditorium Maximum as part of a large year’s end celebration. On November 29, 2023, this award was given to Robert Willma.

On Friday, December 15, 2023, Doro successfully defended her PhD thesis entitled "The neurogenetic basis of human intelligence - how network connectivity mediates the effect of polygenic scores on intelligence". Yes, it’s a long title. But it’s also a very complex topic that requires care, hard work and (of course) intelligence.

It is said that pirates made their victims walk the plank over the side of their ship. Biopsychologists from Bochum, Amsterdam, Hamburg, and Wellington made the same for science. Well, sort of. The aim was to study the neural fundaments of fear.

Some reports argued that birth complications can increase the occurrence of left handedness and thereby the risk for mental disorders. Is that true? Scientists from Bochum, Hamburg, and Göttingen joined forces and tested 598 healthy participants in depth for functional asymmetries, birth events, and clinical conditions.