The largest brain in relation to mass. The advanced intelligence of whales and dolphins is an evolutionary response to the need to live in society. Who has the largest brain relative to body
Scientists study and determine the ratio of the volume of the brain to the volume of the bodies of living beings on Earth. They also found out which of the animals has the heaviest brain. It is known that among people there are record holders for the weight of the brain.
Who has the largest brain relative to body?
Comparing the ratio of brain mass to body mass, it turned out that among vertebrates, the hummingbird occupies the first place. This bird has a ratio of 1/12. It would be possible to determine the ratio among invertebrates, however, as such, they do not have a brain, but there are nerve nodes or ganglia. If you calculate the ratio by comparing the mass of nerve endings with the body mass of invertebrates, it turns out that the ant is the champion. Its ratio is 1/4.If a person had a ratio of 1/4, like an ant, the head would weigh at least twenty kilograms, and would be about eight times larger. However, an ant brain is forty thousand times smaller than a human brain when compared to the number of cells it is made up of.
Scientists conducted research and experiments to understand whether the ant has a mind. It turned out that these miniature insects are able to generalize and synthesize the information they receive.
Ants can learn, they mature gradually, which confirms their complex social appearance. And the more complex the species, the more time the ant spends on learning. It is the nervous system that prevents ants from being considered intelligent animals. Due to the fact that the brain of this insect consists of five hundred thousand neurons, it is not capable of thinking. A number of scientists believe that among ants there is a distribution of the brain among the members of the colony. This distribution is comparable to the connection of computers via the Internet to solve certain problems.
It turns out that each ant is a small particle of a huge super brain. This is a riddle for scientists that they are trying to solve. There is a version that they act in concert thanks to radio waves or telepathy.
Such a coincidence is surprising - a similar ratio in humans is the same as in Mormirus fish or elephant fish. It is equal to 1\38-1\50. Among fish, it is the Mormirus fish that has the largest ratio of brain mass to its body mass.
After examining the ratio of interest among primates, it was found that the largest ratio is not in humans at all, but in the Squirrel Monkey or Saimiri. This ratio in this primate is 1/17.
Animals with big brains
Researchers, after observing dozens of different types of animals, concluded that those whose absolute brain volume is larger have better control over their behavior. This is not about the mass of the brain, but about its ratio with the volume of the body. Interestingly, monkeys, wolves, carnivorous dogs showed good self-control, but the elephant showed poor results.You can evaluate the brain not by the ratio of its volume to the volume of the body, but by size. Several record holders. It is known that among terrestrial animals the brain of the largest mass is in the elephant. About five kilograms - the brain of an Indian elephant weighs so much.
The record holder among all living creatures of the planet in terms of brain weight is the whale Physeter Macrocephalus. The brain of this animal can reach nine kilograms. However, if you calculate the ratio of brain to body, you get 1/40,000. The weight of a whale's brain depends on its age and species. It is known that the blue whale is much larger than the sperm whale, but its brain is smaller and weighs only six kilograms eight hundred grams.
Another owner of a large brain is the northern beluga dolphin. Its brain weighs two kilograms, three hundred and fifty grams, while that of the bottlenose dolphin weighs only one kilogram, seven hundred and thirty-five grams.
The living being of the planet with a big brain is man. On average, his brain weighs from one kilogram twenty grams to one kilogram nine hundred and seventy grams.
The largest human brain
The weight of the human brain depends on many factors. Firstly, the male brain is larger than the female by about one hundred to one hundred and fifty grams. There is no significant difference in brain weight between individual races. 
Our ancestors had much smaller brains than ours. Weight changed significantly when the first primitive man appeared. The brain of Pithecanthropus did not exceed nine hundred cubic centimeters, and the brain of Sinanthropus was about one thousand two hundred and twenty-five cubic centimeters, thus catching up with the brain of a modern woman. It is known that the Cro-Magnons had a brain, the volume of which is one thousand eight hundred and eighty cubic centimeters.
Today, the brain of a European is about one thousand four hundred and forty-six cubic centimeters. It can be concluded that every two hundred years the brain "shrinks" by one cubic centimeter. I would like to hope that the decrease in volume does not lead to a drop in intelligence, but is caused by an improvement in the design.
It is known that Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev's brain weight turned out to be equal to two kilograms and twelve grams. One could consider his brain to be the largest, however, in a certain individual who lived only three years, the weight of the brain was two kilograms nine hundred grams.
Some celebrities just need to keep their brains busy. According to the site, Christina Aguilera does not know where the Cannes Film Festival is taking place. .
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“Let the horse think, it has a bigger head!” - familiar phrase?
And everything seems to be logical - the larger the brain, the smarter its happy owner. Yes, and there are a lot of examples of this: all sorts of insects-cockroaches with a brain of a few milligrams, mice, squirrels and titmouse with a brain weighing only about 1 gram, and then - cats (about 30 gr.), Dogs (about 100 gr.) And anthropoid monkeys with brain weighing about 400 gr. - well, they can’t compete with such clever people like you and me, who have, on average, 1400 grams of gray matter. So far everything seems to be correct.
Well, then complete misunderstandings begin: missing out on all kinds of horses and cows with a brain weight of 300-400 grams, an elephant has a brain weight of more than 5 kg, and sperm whales, in general, more than 7 kg! Wow! So that's who they are - the smartest and wisest! An-no!
It turns out that intelligence just depends not so much on the size and weight of the brain, but on the ratio of its weight to the total weight of the whole body. And here man has no equal!
Well, for example: In humans, the ratio of body weight to brain weight is: .... So…. 70 kg divided by 1.4 kg…so…. Yep, 50 times. But in a cow - 1000 times, in a dog - 500 times, in a chimpanzee - 120 times. Well, if you count whales and sperm whales among the “wise men”, then in general it turns out that the weight of their body exceeds the weight of the brain by as much as 3000 times!
In general, our only and closest “intelligence” relatives are dolphins, the brain weight of some species of which reaches 1700 grams, with a body weight of about 135 kg.
But I wonder if there is a difference in the weight of the brain, so to speak, within the human race? It turns out yes, there is!
We continue.
In general, our brain is a rather energy-intensive and energy-consuming thing. For example, a "resting" brain consumes 9% of the body's energy and 20% of oxygen, and a "working", that is, a thinking brain, consumes about 25% of all nutrients entering the body and about 33% of the oxygen that the body needs so much. In general, it turns out that thinking is not very profitable! And even, the question arises: why do we need such a large and “gluttonous” brain?
It turns out that, in addition to saving energy, one more factor is very important for survival, both in the animal world and in the human world - reaction time. And this is where our big brain comes in very handy! A person uses it as a matter of fact as a large and powerful computer, which turns on when it is necessary to dramatically speed up the solution of complex tasks that require enormous stress and quick response. That is why, although our brain is insanely voracious, it is sooo necessary and irreplaceable.
So how does this "computer" work?
Scientists have long noticed that advanced intelligence and an evolutionarily developed brain are present in humans and other animals, often demonstrating social behavior. This led anthropologist and evolutionary psychologist Robin Dunbar to propose the social brain hypothesis. According to the theory, man developed a large brain in order to be able to live in large social groups. Although in the last 20,000 years, due to the “domestication” of man, his brain has decreased in size, but before that, evolution had to quickly increase the brain of hominids in a relatively short time so that people could unite in large tribes.
In social communication, it is very important to recognize the so-called "outside knowledge", that is, to understand the hierarchy, social relationships and relationships such as "she knows what he knows" and the like. For example, the alpha male in a chimpanzee chooses any females for himself, but at the same time he is tolerant of attempts to mate with them from those who helped him to reign on the throne. Without a sufficiently advanced brain, such intricacies of social hierarchy cannot be assimilated.
Now a group of scientists from the US and the UK has published a new scientific paper "The Social and Cultural Roots of the Whale and Dolphin Brain", which confirms the social brain hypothesis.
The cetaceans (dolphins and whales) have the most advanced nervous systems of any taxonomic group and rank highly on any measure of neuroanatomical complexity. However, many cetaceans are also organized into hierarchical social structures and display a surprising breadth of cultural and social behavior, features that are - rare in animals - very similar to the social behavior of humans and primates. But so far, little evidence has been collected of correlations between large brains, social structures, and cultural behavior in cetaceans.
Whales and dolphins have a vast array of complex social behaviors, including:
- relationships in complex alliances;
- social transfer of hunting techniques (training);
- joint hunting;
- complex singing, including singing in regional group dialects;
- speech mimicry (imitation of other people's voices);
- the use of "voice signatures-identifiers" unique to a particular individual;
- interspecies cooperation with humans and other animals;
- alloparental care for someone else's cub (for example, by a female helper or "nanny");
- social games.
The researchers collected a large amount of data on each species of cetacean - body weight, brain size, the degree of manifestation of social communication on the above signs - and calculated the correlation between these indicators. The first diagram below shows relationships between species and brain size (red for larger, green for smaller). On the second diagram - indicators of social behavior (social repertoire). Finally, below is a graph of the relationship between these two parameters.
Scientists have found that the evolutionary development of the brain is associated with the social structure of the species and with the size of the group. Moreover, the relationship with group size is quadratic, that is, the most developed brain and advanced social behavior are shown by medium-sized groups, and not small or large groups.
The authors of the scientific work point to clear parallels between marine mammals and primates/humans. Dolphins and whales also have a combination of both large brains, hypersocial behavior and a variety of behavioral patterns. It was these qualities that allowed man to multiply in incredible numbers and populate the entire Earth. Scientists believe that in dolphins and humans, intellectual abilities manifested themselves in the course of evolution as a kind of evolutionary reaction to the need to live in a society of their own kind.
Man considers himself the most intelligent being on the planet. How much does it depend on the mass of the brain? How "expensive" is it for the body to think and how much time do you need to rest from thinking?
Comparison of the size of the brain of a blue whale (left) and a human (right)
The average weight of the human brain is 1.4 kg. The brain of an elephant weighs 5 kg, while that of a blue whale is 6.8 kg and that of a sperm whale is 7 kg. The ratio of brain mass to body mass, the so-called cerebral index, is also not the highest in humans. The brain makes up about 2% of the mass of the human body, in a hummingbird this figure is 16%, in an insectivorous mouse - 10%.
The size of the brain can vary greatly from person to person, and a large brain is by no means a sign of genius. For example, Albert Einstein's brain weighed 1230 g, and the owner of the heaviest brain (2850 g) was a psychiatric patient suffering from idiocy.
Thought processes require huge energy costs. Occupying only 2% of body weight, the brain, even in an inactive state, eats up 9% of the incoming energy. And as soon as he has food for thought, he begins to consume a quarter of the energy and a third of the incoming oxygen.
After intellectual labor, the body needs rest. The brain recovers 3 times longer than the time spent thinking. That is, after 4 hours of active intellectual labor, 12 hours of complete intellectual idleness should follow. Don't forget about it and take care of your neurons.
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The human brain weighs from 1100 to 2000 grams, which is about 2% of the total body weight. At the same time, the mass of the female and male brain is different - in the strong half, the brain is “heavier” by about 100-150 grams. According to scientists, the weight of the brain also depends on the age of the person. For example, a newborn baby has a brain mass of 455 grams. So how much does the human brain weigh? Let's try to understand this interesting question.
How much does an adult human brain weigh?
The brain is made up of many nerve cells and is one of the most important organs in the body. There is an opinion that the level of a person's intelligence depends on the mass of his brain. However, this is nothing more than a myth - the brain of a genius may well turn out to be smaller than the brain of a person of low mental abilities. It is enough to trace the "dimensions" of the brain of many great minds of mankind. So, let's turn to statistics and compare the brain mass of such prominent personalities as:
- Walt Whitman - 1256
- Lenin - 1340
- Stanislavsky - 1505
- Trotsky - 1568
- Mendeleev - 1571
- Pavlov - 1653
- Beethoven - 1750
- Yesenin - 1920
- Turgenev - 2012
- Byron - 2238
As you can see, the presence of talent or personal gifts does not depend on the weight of the human brain. It has been proven that the level of intelligence is affected by certain parts of the brain - the "gray matter". And here, in turn, the density of the location of neurons and the number of connections between them play a decisive role.
Many diseases may well provoke an increase in the cerebral cortex, which will affect its mass. Science has recorded the largest brain - weighing 2850 grams! True, the owner of such a "unique" was a weak-minded person.
An interesting fact: representatives of different races and nationalities have different brain masses. For example, Belarusians have an average brain weight of 1429 grams, while Russians have 1399 grams. If we compare the brain mass of a black American (1223 grams) and the "average" German (1425 grams), then the difference between the indicators will be 202 grams.
The human brain weighs between 1100 and 2000 grams.
Australians have the "lightest" brain - 1185 grams! A little “heavier” is the brain of Asians - Koreans and Japanese (1376 grams and 1313 grams, respectively).
It should be noted that the weight of the brain is not a static value. From birth to age 27, the brain “grows” in weight, and then its mass gradually but steadily decreases. For every next 10 years, a person “loses” 30 grams of the brain!
How much does an elephant's brain weigh?
The average mass of the brain of an elephant is from 4000 to 5000 grams. Compared to the weight of the human brain, the largest mammalian brains are more than twice as heavy. As it has been scientifically proven, the level of intelligence does not depend on the size of the brain - otherwise, the “crown of creation” on the planet would not be a person, but elephants and whales.
The mass of the brain of an elephant is from 4000 to 5000 grams.
What criterion affects the potential level of intelligence? This is the ratio of brain mass to total body weight. Observation of different types of animals showed that animals with a higher score are able to better control their behavior. In humans, the ratio of brain weight to body weight is 1: 40, but elephants cannot “boast” of such successes - in these huge mammals, this figure is 1: 560.
How much does a whale's brain weigh?
The mass of the brain of a whale reaches 9000 grams.
The blue whale is the largest mammal that has ever lived on Earth. Indeed, the body length of a whale often exceeds 30 meters, and its weight is more than 150 tons.
The brain mass of this water "record holder" reaches 9000 grams, and the ratio of this indicator to the total body weight is 1: 40,000.
How much does the brain and heart of a blue (blue) whale weigh?
An interesting fact is that the weight of a whale's heart is between 600 and 700 kg, and the brain weighs an average of 6.8 kg. As you can see, the whale brain is about 100 times lighter than the heart. Why does a whale need such a “big” heart? The fact is that a small heart would hardly have coped with transporting blood through the vessels of such a huge multi-ton body.
The northern beluga whale is also the owner of a large brain weighing 2350 grams. But his “brother” bottlenose dolphin has a brain mass of only 1735 grams.
The human brain is a unique creation of nature. Indeed, in the total body mass, the share of the brain is only 2%, and to stay even in a state of “rest”, the body needs at least 9% of the energy entering the body. What can we say with the activity of thought processes! As soon as a person begins to think “strongly”, the level of energy consumption immediately increases to the level of 25%. In addition, increased brain activity requires additional oxygen supply. So while solving logical problems or writing essays, our brain “takes” up to a third of all incoming oxygen from the body.
Now we know how much the human brain weighs by itself, as well as in relation to the brain of some animals of the mammal class.