The cunning and ability of crows to learn complex tricks have long been known, but now scientists believe that these birds are capable of more. Namely, they discovered the primary consciousness, the basis of the mind, which, for example, man differs from animals. Moreover, it is possible that similar potential lay in all birds, the brain which turned out to be arranged much more complicated than we previously thought.

Previous ideas about the presence of mind different beings were firmly tied to the structure of their brains – in particular, the presence of a complex crust with many convolutions. There is a processing of signals from the external world and analysis of data. One of the convolutions is greater, and more capable of reasonable activity. In addition to the human primates, dolphins, dogs and even cats. But the brain of most birds, including ravens, smooth.

Physiologist Andreas Nieder, from Tubingen University and biopsychology Martin Stacho from Ruhr University Bochum in Germany, independently from each other conducted a study of the brain of birds. They studied the activity of neurons with flashes of light of different brightness and intensity. Nieder worked with crows, Stacho hooked electrodes to the brain of the owl and the dove – the results were about the same. Bird brain signals react as the human brain, taking into account the personal subjective experience.

Simply put, the experiments showed that primary consciousness, the ability to understand the world, yourself, your actions and plan them to achieve the goal, ravens and other birds definitely is. And the smoothness of the cerebral cortex have nothing to do with, they handle signals differently, although as yet it is unclear how. Stacho put forward the hypothesis that the ravens survived a “mental” mechanism from the ancient, by a common ancestor. Nieder agree with him – such a creature with half a brain lived about 320 million years ago and during that time his descendants have evolved, have become very different from each other, but retained parent the gift of reason.
Source — Science