貓更聰明還是狗更聰明

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.

他們可能咬你的鞋子，偶爾還會在地毯上撒尿，或者在你掉頭的一瞬間吃完整頓晚餐，但事實證明，家裏養的狗狗比貓咪聰明多了。

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.

範德比爾特的研究人員決定將這場爭論已久的話題客觀實驗化，研究多種動物大腦中的皮質神經元數量。結果是？犬科動物的神經元數量遠遠大於貓科動物。

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.)

事實表明，狗狗含有5.3億個皮質神經元。而貓咪含有的皮質神經元連這一半都不到，差不多2.5億個。（人類含有160億個。）

"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.

"我相信動物神經元的絕對數量決定了它們的內心精神狀態，並且決定了它們基於過去的經驗，預測環境中將會發生什麼的能力，尤其是大腦皮層中的神經元，"範特比爾特的心理學和生理學副教授Suzana Herculano-Houzel說道，她與國際研究人員合作負責監管這項研究。

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.)

這篇研究將發表在《神經解剖學前沿》雜誌上（Frontiers in Neuroanatomy），這對reddit的愛貓用戶肯定造成了傷害。這篇研究指出大腦大小不一定與整體智力相關。比如，研究人員發現：雖然棕熊的大腦是貓咪的10倍，但它們的神經元數量卻大致相同。（浣熊和貓咪的智力也差不多。）

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.

儘管有了這些發現，但人們並不會立馬停止爭論：貓更聰明還是狗更聰明？Herculano-Houzel自己就承認這一點，雖然研究是客觀的，但她對這個問題卻有着自己的偏見。

"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."

"我是愛狗狂人，"她說道，"但於我而言，我們的研究意味着：生活中，狗狗有着比貓咪做更復雜、更靈活事情的生理能力。"