For all those cat owners out there, have you ever wondered if you and your cat are more alike than you thought? Beyond the shared love of naps and sunbathing, cats and humans share some surprising similarities in brain structure.

Cat Brains

Brain Structure

According to Nicholas Dodman, an animal behaviour expert at Tufts University, cats and humans have almost identical brain structures, especially in the regions that control emotion. Like humans, cats have temporal, occipital, frontal and parietal lobes in their brains. Cat brains also contain grey and white matter, and the connections within their brains mirror those of humans.

  • Cerebral Cortex: Cats and humans both have cerebral cortices. These have similar lobes and surface folding, which increases brain activity and complexity.
  • Specialised Regions: Like humans, cats have designated brain regions in charge of complex tasks such as eating, playing and looking for food.
  • Hub-and-Spoke Network: Cat brains are divided into many interconnected areas with specialised tasks that share sensory information. This allows them to construct a complex perception of the real world and react to it.
  • Other Structures: The domestic cat brain also contains the hippocampus, amygdala, frontal lobes, corpus callosum, anterior commissure, pineal gland, caudate nucleus, septal nuclei, and midbrain. The feline brain’s structure and surface folding is 90 percent similar to that of humans. Each part of the cat brain is compartmentalised, specialised, and connected to the other parts, giving cats an almost human-like ability to understand and respond to their surroundings.

Neurotransmitters and Senses

Cats’ brains release neurotransmitters in a similar pattern to that of humans when confronted with information from their five senses. Though cats rely less on sight than humans, sensory input from their eyes, nose, and nerve endings is processed by the brain like in humans.

Memory

Like humans, cats have both short-term and long-term memory. Cats are able to recall information from up to 16 hours in the past. Some research suggests that cats can retain memories for as long as 10 years. Cats also pass the object permanence test, meaning that they remember that something exists when it’s out of sight and can even reason where an object might have gone if it moves.

Intelligence

Cats are constantly surprising us, and their brains are no different. They can learn new information, mesh it with existing information, recall it, and use that information in other situations.

Final Thoughts

While a cat’s brain is smaller than a human brain, cats are intelligent creatures. It would seem that cats and humans are more similar than one may have initially thought. Maybe dogs should make room for cats as man’s new best friend? Food for thought.

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