Grein um heilakyknur hjá grindahvali

Í nýggjari vísindagrein leggja granskarar úr Føroyum og Danmark fram úrslit av kanningum av heilakyknum hjá grindahvali.

Víst verður á, at talið av neuronkyknum í heilanum hjá grindahvali er hægri enn hjá nøkrum øðrum súgdjóri, íroknað menniskju. Hetta kann tó ikki siga nakað beinleiðis um intelligens, tí aðrir faktorar, eitt nú tættleikin av neuron kyknum spæla inn har.

Greinin kallast Quantitative relationships in Delphinid neocortex og er at lesa í tíðarritinum Frontiers in Neuroanatomy. Les greinina her

Rithøvundarnir eru Heidi S. Mortensen, Bente Pakkenberg, Maria Dam, Rune Dietz, Christian Sonne, Bjarni Mikkelsen og Nina Eriksen.

Greinin er partur av masteruppgávuni hjá Heidi S. Mortensen, fyrstahøvundi, sum er umhvørvisviðgeri á Umhvørvisstovuni.
 
Enskur samandráttur
Possessing large brains and complex behavioural patterns, cetaceans are believed to be highly intelligent. Their brains, which are the largest in the Animal Kingdom and have enormous gyrification compared with terrestrial mammals, have long been of scientific interest. Few studies, however, report total number of brain cells in cetaceans, and even fewer have used unbiased counting methods. In this study, using stereological methods, we estimated the total number of cells in the long-finned pilot whale (Globicephala melas) brain. For the first time, we show that a species of dolphin has more neocortical neurons than in any mammal studied to date including humans. These cell numbers are compared across various mammals with different brain sizes, and the function of possessing many neurons is discussed. We found that the long-finned pilot whale neocortex has approximately 37.2 × 109 neurons, which is almost twice as many as humans, and 127 × 109 glial cells. Thus, the absolute number of neurons in the human neocortex is not correlated with the superior cognitive abilities of humans (at least compared to cetaceans) as has previously been hypothesized. However, as neuron density in long-finned pilot whales is lower than that in humans, their higher cell number appears to be due to their larger brain. Accordingly, our findings make an important contribution to the ongoing debate over quantitative relationships in the mammalian brain.